


A Snake Without Fangs

by AwfulLawful



Category: Wild Kratts
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Coffee Addiction, Creature Rescues, Customer Service & Tech Support, Evolution, F/M, Heroes Out Sick, Hive Mind, M/M, Male Slash, Redemption, Slow Romance, Villains to Heroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 93,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16032575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwfulLawful/pseuds/AwfulLawful
Summary: Aviva is helpless due to illness, Donita is on the rampage, and a lack of technical ability among the rest of the Kratts team leaves them unable to function. Their only choice is to hire a stand-in technician. Unfortunately their best option for success thinks of animals as less than wonders of nature.





	1. A Substitute for Talent

**Chapter 1: A Substitute for Talent**

* * *

"You should know that above all I hate the caging of live things, and I will not keep even such creatures as these caged beyond great need. A snake without fangs may crawl where he will." ~Treebeard

* * *

"An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent." ~ Criss Jami

* * *

 

It had started with the Flu.

The Kratt brothers went home to see their family for Chris's birthday and brought it back with them. Both brothers caught it and thought they were over it by the time they got back, but apparently they weren't completely past the infectious stage. Koki fell to it next, followed by Jimmy. Both recovered in a couple of weeks and carried on as usual. Muscle aches, sniffles and coughing persisted all around but for the most part everyone dealt with it just fine.

Then Aviva caught it.

She seemed to be getting better. A week of the usual flu symptoms began to subside to near-health. She had even pulled an all-nighter programming pre-emptive features for the Creature Power Suits once the chills had stopped. That was probably not the best idea as her fever came back full force by noon the next day either due to the strain or a latent infection that might have healed on its own if she had continued resting like a sensible person. Less than twenty four hours later she was in the hospital with full-on pneumonia.

The non-negotiable order of bed rest for three weeks crippled the team. Aviva was entirely unable to do her usual duties and as a result couldn't maintain the Tortuga, the Creature Power Suits, make Creature Power Discs, analyze animal powers, or do absolutely anything else that the Kratt team needed to perform their daily tasks. In fact she wasn't even allowed to leave the hospital since her condition had deteriorated so severely. At any time she might have to be on oxygen and was barely allowed to get out of bed. This left her friends as utterly helpless as she was; they had all realized entirely too late that she had become irreplaceable and no fail-safes were set up to compensate for her loss; even a short-term one.

The Tortuga, Kratts, and all missions were on hold until she was available again. They were essentially dead in the water.

Unfortunately Donita hadn't waited out of courtesy. Given that they weren't actively going after things and Donita usually found her newest target by following them to it nobody quite understood where she had gotten the idea. But the moment she did, no Peacock Mantis Shrimp was safe. The Kratts only found out about the problem when some of their local Wild Kratts Kids in Thailand reported the poaching.

Martin and Chris went ahead to try and stop her and get the creatures back, but due to a surprisingly thorough amount of research Donita had an aquarium made to keep the glass-shattering mantis shrimp in that just wouldn't break. As usual the only way the Kratts would be able to save the creatures was to have Mantis Shrimp Power - specifically the smashing appendages that, on a human scale, would allow them to break open the aquarium.

Martin paced in the background while the others had Aviva on video conference. There was less than four hours until Donita's announced event date where her (admittedly gorgeous) Peacock Mantis Shrimp inspired clothing line would debut. Unfortunately she had not yet been able to figure out how to make the colorful little things an actual part of the ensemble without taking them out of the water.

Whether she would particularly mind them expiring just after the show wasn't clear, but they would definitely be living when they were frozen and mounted on the models before the catwalk run. 'Beauty is fleeting' after all.

Aviva couldn't speak without coughing so she had a messaging window open instead. At the speed she typed it didn't make much difference except that she now had to pause and wait for everyone to finish reading.

"Can't you do the programming from there?" Chris asked plaintively. "You're allowed to have your computer in the hospital."

**[There is a HUGE difference between my laptop and my Station in the Tortuga. I can't make Discs from here and my mobile system is out of commission because I had to harvest it for parts to fix my station after the last power failure caused a surge.]**

"What do we  _do_?" Martin demanded in a mild panic. They had already been to see what they could do and been forced to go back, and thus Martin had named a little friend. Once he named them you just KNEW there was no way he was leaving them. "Donita's going to suffocate them! They can't breathe outside the water!"

"From a practicality standpoint I don't know why she would bother with Mantis Shrimp. She's famous for her living fashions and they're obviously not going to be living long after being sold," Koki said sadly. "I know they're not endangered, but it still sort of sucks."

Aviva looked like she was either about to cough up another storm or vomit. She swallowed instead and a definite look of helpless defeat bled across her face.

**[Call Zach.]**

The reaction was instantaneous and unanimous. "ZACH?!"

"What could  _Varmitech_  possibly do to help us? He can't even build Zachbots that recognize the difference between a verbal command, a figure of speech, and  _sarcasm_ ," Koki complained.

Aviva nodded sympathetically and began to type again.

**[Yes, but those are _his_  designs. There's a difference between designing something yourself and following someone else's instructions. Zach may not be the best inventor, but he IS one of the best mechanical technicians I know. If there's a plan in front of him he can build it, fix it, and probably improve it; no doubt in my mind. That's ALL you need him for until I'm able to come back guys. No new stuff, just repairs and maintenance.]**

Jimmy balked. "But won't he just steal all your inventions while he's here?"

**[I'll just have to trust you guys to keep him under control. We're pretty familiar with the way he operates by now.]**

Chris ran a hand through his hair nervously. "What about the Creature Power Discs? You always say how complicated those are. Can he do it fast enough?"

**[For the Discs there's a basic programming already installed. I used to create each one from scratch but it took a dangerously long time, and with more than two Creature Power suits I had to expedite the creation process. It's still really too complicated for you guys, no offense. Koki might be able to learn the system I've got set up but it will take a few weeks or maybe even months.**

**Zach should already be familiar with similar systems so it won't take him long at all to pick it up. Even the DNA sequencing for Metamorphosis and Amphibian Life Cycles are already available in a simplified template. Essentially, from a programming standpoint, all it needs is someone to fill in the blanks and push 'CREATE'; but you have to know the programming to begin with. It may not be the best reason in the world but he's hacked us before, remember? That means he already has experience with our systems and how they work. If anyone can help you guys in time to save those creatures its Zach. I'll be remotely available from here if he needs any further instruction or advice.]**

There was a pause while they read through that. Martin winced. "But then he'll have all of your inventions and designs, if only because he worked on them. He won't even need to steal the plans. I don't like it."

Aviva took a slow breath and failed to do it delicately enough to avoid coughing completely. When her dangerously pale face came back up off the pillow she typed again.

**[If we have to bring in help it should be someone I'm positive can do the job even if we don't get along personally. It's already my fault we're in this mess for not having a backup plan. My inventions are patented and Zach is honestly not very good without a plan, so as long as you guys don't let him take any with him when he leaves anything he attempts to build modeled after my things will be, at best, inspired. Sorry, guys. There's isn't any choice. Trust me on this one. It's the only way I can think to save those Mantis Shrimp.]**

**[I want you to call Zach.]**

Martin grumbled. "I still don't like it."

"Neither do I, but what other options do we have?" Koki sighed. "Donita won't just give the Mantis Shrimp back to us if we ask  _really nicely_. As much as I want to say this is just a delusional effect of her fever, I've got to agree with Aviva on this one. We need major tech support and  **now**. I'm not sure if Zach is the best choice, but he's the one our inventor is recommending. I say we take her word for it."

Chris sighed. " _Fine_ ; we'll call Zach. He won't agree, though. There is no way he'll help us. Especially not for three weeks."

**[Let me handle that.]**

Aviva typed hard enough to make her screen shake.

**[Conference Call.]**

Aviva started the connection and, while it rang, a picture of Zach graced the window his video would display on once he picked up his end of the line.

Chris blinked. "Uh... where did we get that picture?"

* * *

 

"Why do I even have that picture?" Zach wondered aloud while he sipped his coffee. The last time he had gotten a call from the Kratts Team it hadn't occurred to him to wonder about the image since the call itself had surprised him so much. Now it just made him raise a brow. The phone rang several more times and he smiled to himself as he turned the newspaper over to read the other side of the page. "Can't hear you. La-la-la."

While he continued his breakfast a Zachbot went by and dusted the table. The phone stopped for a minute and it began to ring again.

"I am  _so_  not getting that," he mused aloud.

The Zachbot answered it.

"HEY! I didn't mean for YOU to get it either!" He put his coffee down and stomped over to the screen where five people were waiting impatiently for him.

"Oh. It's actually you this time."

"Yeah, and-" Chris started hurriedly.

Zach hung up. "And now it's not," he said pleasantly and went back to his waffles.

* * *

 

"THAT LITTLE ~GNNGHCTCSH~!" Koki bit out, just missing a PG-13 rating thanks to Jimmy shoving his newly opened ice cream sandwich into her mouth before she could finish. He smiled apologetically and raised his hands in surrender when she glared at him.

Aviva rolled her eyes and typed out a few things they couldn't see, then went back to the messaging window.

**[Stand by.]**

* * *

 

Zach glanced over to his phone with a bored expression when a text message came through from Aviva.

**[Pick up, Zach.]**

He rolled his eyes and typed out,  **[Why should I and why aren't you calling?]**

**[First because you wouldn't pick up if I just called again with no explanation. Second; I lost my voice. Pneumonia.]**

**[It probably says something about you that it took an army of billions to finally shut you up, microbes or not,]** he plucked out while snickering quietly to himself.

**[Creep. Pick up when the team calls you back.]**

**[I'm going to block all of you.]**

**[You'd miss me. Friendship can fade but rivals are forever.]**

Zach took a moment trying to think of a rebuttal for that, but shrugged and conceded.  **[True, but you still haven't given me good reason to.]**

**[Martin is on the verge of a panic attack and Chris looks like he's about to explode. You can take screencaps.]**

**[Ha! Deal.]**

* * *

 

Zach was recording his video feed before he even picked up.

Martin, determined to get in the full explanation before Zach hung up again, immediately put his hands on both sides of the screen and spoke so quickly that it all nearly came out as one huge word. "Donita and Dabio captured a lot of peacock mantis shrimp for their new fashion line and Aviva's too sick to come back here and make the Creature Power Discs and we need to save them because the aquariums they're in are too hard to break without the Claw Strike power and we  _have to save them or they'll suffocate when the show starts because they won't be in the water anymore so **you've got to make the Creature Power Discs for us before it's too late and Flash-Smash is gone forever!**_ " he pleaded, taking a huge gasping breath after that rant while everyone stared in wide-eyed shock behind him. "You've got to help us! We need a stand-in technician!  _Fast!_  Donita's show is in five hours!"

Zach stared blankly for a moment, dumbstruck. Then he arched a brow and utterly failed to speak fast enough to keep up with his suddenly frantic thoughts, which had all panicked in his head and started scattering like angry bees. "Wait. That's not… You can't… Why would… *beat *  _What!?_ " Zach growled in frustration and palmed his face in an effort to calm down. He took three deep breaths. At that point Logic and Sense gathered Greed, Vindication, Pride, and Curiosity and they caught up with Suspicion and Panic and made them sit down for a minute so they could all collaborate properly. He blinked a few times when his brain felt more organized and pointed at them accusingly. "Are you trying to  _hire me_?" he asked shrilly.

"YES," the four vocal Kratt members said at once according to their various stages of emotion (i.e. Koki annoyed, Jimmy worried, Chris angry, and Martin frantic).

"NO!" Zach said on reflex, then put up a hand once he got over the initial shock. "Wait… let me think about it."

**[We don't have time for that.]**  Aviva's window read.

"I don't even know what sort of contract would cover-" Zach seemed to consider this a moment. "Varmitech Industries isn't cheap, you know," he stated warily. "Especially if you need support that doesn't allow animals, and you're requesting Varmitech himself."

"You know I would never make a request like this if it wasn't important!" Aviva took a break to cough violently. Koki winced in her section of the screen out of sympathy, while Zach winced because it disgusted him. "I can give you all the instructions you'll need. Just help them,  _please._ "

"Yeah, do us all a favor and don't talk again." Zach thought a moment, running his fingers over his goetee. "You realize you'll have to let me into your systems, see your data, tell me how to work the Suits and make new Creature Power Discs?" he ventured.

"We have a contract written up already," Koki said proudly, and Zach's fax machine (in a Zachbot, of course) buzzed to life as it began to print it out. "It's the same one Aviva signed, with a few changes to add her as the owner of anything she's invented for us."

"Of course you do..." he drawled in mild disappointment.

He started to flip for it and scan for key phrases while they kept begging him, which was an entirely nice experience all around since his blatant disregard for their urgency only seemed to make it worse.

"So basically," Zach huffed while looking over the frustratingly well-written contract, "there's nothing in it for me besides a normal job? I take over Aviva's role on the Kratts team while she's in quarantine and generally trying not to die-"

"Aviva is NOT going to die!" Jimmy shouted fiercely.

"- and actively work against my evil compatriots in the process; which will cause me a lot of trouble in the long run and isn't even worth the commission fee." He crossed his arms and glared at them all. "Why did you bother calling me again?"

Aviva nearly pouted, but hid it remarkably well as a pained groan.  **[Because you get to rub it in my face later that I didn't plan for this sort of thing, like _you always do_?]**

Zach snickered and bit his lip. "Seriously, what kind of stooge doesn't plan for a periodic absence? Don't you psychos ever go on vacation?'

"No," all Kratts members snapped simultaneously.

Zach sighed as if it physically hurt him to consider this. "Give me a few hours to review the contract-"

"We don't have time for that!" Martin ventured in a panic. "Flash-Smash won't last long outside the water!"

Zach gave the blonde a look that clearly illustrated he didn't care. "Flash-Smash?"

"Peacock Mantis Shrimp," Koki said quickly, displaying a picture of one on her section of the screen. "We've only said it about a dozen times! They're native to the Indo-Pacific along the coasts between Guam and East Africa. Donita took-"

Zach raised a brow. "I'm not surprised. It  **is**  kind of pretty-"

"ZACH!" four voices chorused at him urgently.

He shrieked, startled, and dropped the contract which spread out all over the floor. "Okay, okay!" he conceded. "I'll make the stupid discs for the rainbow bug-thingie! But if there's a loophole in the contract  _anywhere_  I'm taking whatever I can! You guys have to sign a waiver saying I offered a proper review and you refused it, too." he warned. "It's the principle of the thing," he said benignly, as if to convey he meant no personal offense and even examining his nails for show. "You understand."

"Unfortunately; yes. We do," Chris said flatly.

Zach clapped his hands together in triumph and grinned. "Alright, go back to bed Aviva; I'll rescue your Wild Rats and keep them in tech until you're all better. Now, since we are on a time crunch... where are you?"

"Thailand. Sending coordinates now," Koki said.

Zach raised a brow. "My jet's top speed is Mach 2. It'll take me at least three hours to get there. You'd better have absolutely everything ready for me to start working the instant I arrive if you want to make Donita's show."

"Done," Koki said and got up to start gathering things.

Martin sighed in mild relief. "Thanks, Zach."

"And HURRY," Chris added.

* * *

 

One thing that could be said about Zach, he had reflexes the likes of which nobody had seen outside Aviva at her most determined. He was typing at a speed that made the Tortuga echo as if it had several woodpeckers attacking the walls. Another thing that could be said was that he never missed an opportunity to complain.

"You realize that this is the programming equivalent of weaving a room-sized tapestry out of a single long thread? Everything loops back into everything else! I mean, coding the eyes  _alone_ -"

"Can you do it, though?" Martin asked urgently.

Zach snorted. "I'm doing it  _now_ , calm down. If Aviva hadn't put up all these guides and things in it would have taken me days to work it out. At least she has that amount of foresight in her favor." As he continued to type his phone rang and he reached up casually to put it on speaker. "Varmitech Industries; Turning varmints into robotic solutions. Varmitech speaking," he recited in a practiced and pleasant tone.

_"Zach, **Darling** , I'm hosting a fashion show tonight in Thailand featuring a beautiful new line! Would you be a Dear and help me a while?"_

Everyone froze behind Zach and kept quiet, wondering what he would do.

"Sorry, Donita. I'm already under contract for the time being. I'll have to send someone else to help you," he said casually, never pausing in his work.

_"Why aren't you on screen?"_  she asked.  _"I like to see who I'm talking to."_

Zach rolled his eyes. "So do I, but I'm in a secure area and video is prohibited," he said smoothly. After seeing the surprised looks he was getting he looked back at them and whispered, "Didn't think I could memorize the contract that fast, did you?"

_"Fine,"_ she said tersely. " _You know I can pay up, Zach. I'll double whatever your current clients are offering. Dabio is good for the heavy lifting, but you know he's helpless when it comes to electronics. I've already watched him try and fail once and I won't do it again. He simply can't wire the lights and sound system without your guidance. I only need you for the evening. And maybe we could have some coffee after if you'd like to stay a while,"_  she added with a more alluring tone at the end.

Zach frowned and his typing slowed. "Sadly that isn't an option. I can send another technician to fill in for me, but I'm not personally available at the moment. Maybe next time."

There was a frustrated scoff.  _"Oh, alright. I suppose it is a bit short notice. I can't exactly control when inspiration strikes me, though, you know that."_

"None of us can," Zach said cordially, but there was flatness to his tone. "I'm working right now but call me in a few days if you want to reschedule that coffee."

Even through the phone they could hear Donita's boredom.  _"It's just not the same if we haven't spent the whole evening together. But I'll call you if I need help with another show. Ciao!"_

Zach's typing picked up again after the line went dead. He sent a verbal message to his secretary letting her know to send Donita a technician and went right back to making the Disc programming.

"You're actually sending someone to set up her show!?" Chris demanded.

"Why not?" Zach asked.

"Because you're helping  **us**  right now, remember?" Jimmy said.

"Yes, I am. I, Zach Varmitech, am under contract with you at the moment. That doesn't mean I'm not allowed to run the rest of my company in the meantime," he said flatly. "The fact that two of my current clients are feuding isn't really my concern. Two different technicians were hired to do two different jobs and both contracts will be fulfilled. What do the lights and stage have to do with your critters anyway? If you were paying attention you'd have noticed I'm not running Security this time, so your planned break-in won't interfere with either job. Even if there's no show the setup will still work. Besides, wouldn't it look suspicious if I refused work from Donita? She doesn't know I'm helping you."

Koki grumbled. "You just want to get paid by both sides of this fight, don't you?"

"That's  _business_ , Wild Ratts. I can't be stingy about employment opportunities. You don't like it; make your own Creature Power Discs."

The collective glares did nothing to dissuade him and he simply continued working.

Koki crossed her arms in fury but decided to change the subject. "What was that coffee thing about? Are you two…?"

"No; she was just doing that to get her way," he said blankly. "She doesn't actually mean it." The only sign of his upset was an increase in pressure on the keys and slight posture change but it was still clearly there.

Martin seemed to be the only one who had an iota of sympathy. "Sorry."

"Whatever. Here." He took the Discs out of the casing and handed them to Martin and Chris.

"Less than an hour and a half," Jimmy said in slight awe.

"Don't you want to check your work?" Chris asked suspiciously.

"Don't you want to get there before the show?" Zach countered in the same tone. "It won't take my technician long to set up, believe me, and you've got a ways to go. If there's a big enough crowd Donita might even start start early."

"How do we know you didn't make a mistake on purpose?" Chris accused.

Zach shrugged. "I'm going to be here for the next three weeks; why would I want to give you more reason than usual to make me miserable?"

Martin put his disc in his suit and grabbed Chris's arm. "Come on! We have to save Flash-Smash!"

Chris sighed. "Alright, Bro. Let's go."

Zach sat back in the chair and examined his nails. "I gotta warn you; those rainbow bug thingies are  _mean_. You might get a little crazy if you aren't careful."

"Aviva always manages to compensate for things like that," Martin said.

Zach shook his head. "No she doesn't. A surprising amount of the instinct control is left up to you two. Deactivate if you start getting the urge to do anything the Incredible Hulk would. And that Claw Smash feature? Don't aim it at anything you want intact. I mean  **anything**."

Martin and Chris shared a worried look and gave Zach a nod as they headed out.

The awkward silence when the new, and unusual, HQ team was left alone was positively stifling.

"Uh... what now?" Jimmy asked.

"Have you broken anything since I got here?" Zach asked.

"No," Koki snapped.

"Then I suppose I'm free to work on my own things until I'm needed," he shrugged, and pulled out his laptop from the briefcase he'd come in with.

Koki bristled. "Hang on-"

"I have my own secure network, so I won't be using yours. All I need is a free outlet to charge it," he said sourly. "Unless you'd prefer I go work in my jet? Alone, where you can't keep an eye on me..."

Koki pointed to a free outlet and leaned in so close that Zach shrank back in his chair. "You behave."

"Or?" Zach prompted.

"There are some very interesting 'varmints' native to this area of the world. Do you want to know what a  _Megabat_ is?" Koki asked sweetly, then smiled when green eyes widened nervously. "Then behave yourself."

Thankfully, he did. For a while. They settled into a semi-comfortable arrangement by not talking and doing their own things while Zach stayed well within sight of at least one team member at all times.

Koki tiredly kept flipping through the images of animals in the area doing general research. Beside her Zach was fiddling with his laptop, which was on an empty area of Koki's station, while he worked on something for another client. Behind them Jimmy was alternately sweeping the floor and taking bites out of pizza that was sitting nearby. It was the peaceful, bored atmosphere that usually pervaded the Tortuga when waiting for something interesting to happen and Zach's presence didn't seem to be disrupting it since he was doing his work quietly.

Suddenly something bulbous, tentacled and generally disturbing appeared on Kiki's screen as she flipped through the images. All at once Koki recoiled away from the screen with a startled cry, Jimmy's full mouth betrayed him and he ran to the bathroom to empty his stomach of pizza, and Zach screamed and leapt behind his chair. The scrawl underneath the image said  _"Scotoplanes",_  and the picture might have been less horrifying if it was actually underwater and not on a cutting board, or even if it took up less of the screen.

"What is THAT thing!?" Zach demanded. "Eew! I can't even look at it!" He grabbed the back of her chair and shook it urgently. "Change it! Change it!"

"Okay! Okay!" Koki mashed buttons until the picture was replaced with something a lot more fuzzy and much less creepy. She and Zach shared an unnerved look. "I think it was a type of Sea Cucumber," she said quietly.

"That even  _sounds gross_!" Zach complained. "I may never eat  _real_  cucumbers again."

Jimmy came back and leaned wearily on Koki's chair. "Hate to say it but I'm with Zach."

"I think they actually do eat Sea Cucumbers in Japan," Koki began thoughtfully, which prompted Jimmy to run off again and retch in the background. "Ooh… Sorry, Jimmy!" she called after him.

Zach leaned his forehead on the back of his chair and groaned. "So much for Sushi, too…"

Koki shook her head and kept searching. "Don't be like that, Zach. The sea is full of great creatures with amazing abilities. Not all of them look weird-"

As if on cue, a ' _Panopea generosa'_  appeared on the screen.

Zach gave her a suspicious look. "You  _have to_  be doing this on purpose."

"Do not blame me for the anatomy of Mollusks," Koki put her face in her palms and sighed loudly.

"So, those rainbow bug thingies-"

"Peacock mantis shrimp," she corrected tightly.

"Are they, like, tiny lobsters?"

"Oh, come  _on_! You keep calling mantis shrimp 'bug-thingies' but 'lobster' rolls right off your tongue?"

"I know what lobsters are!" Zach said defensively.

Koki crossed her arms. "And what are they?"

"They're  _delicious_ ," he teased.

"Oh, you-!" she snarled and leapt at him. Zach's screech only encouraged her.

Jimmy grabbed her arms and pulled backward, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth as he had rushed over the instant he heard the noise. "Don't hurt him! We still need him to fix stuff!"

 


	2. Caught in the Web of Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week 1; Getting to Know the Kratts  
> First Creature Rescue, Zach Gets Caught, Chris Gets Rescued by Zach (in a hilarious way).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I did not expect this chapter to be so long. I wrote each day individually and stuck them together later, which added up very quickly. I may post the following weeks in halves instead of all in one go. Also, as my husband said after proofreading, "Man, these people talk a lot." Sorry about that too.

**Chapter 2: Caught in the Web of Duty**

* * *

 

"'Truth' is a privative in the same way that 'sober' is – until you invent lies, you don't know what the truth is. Nature appears to, otherwise animals would not have invested so much effort on very effective camouflage." ~Terry Pratchett; The Science of Discworld

* * *

 

**Day 1**

"Welcome back, guys," Koki said fondly as Martin and Chris walked in.

"Mission successful!" Chris said triumphantly. "And the Peacock Mantis Shrimp Discs worked just fine, surprisingly."

"What do you mean 'surprisingly'!?" Zach demanded. "When I  _hack_  those things they work better than they do normally!"

Martin deactivated his and let out a tired but happy sigh as he fell into a chair. "Don't ruin the moment, Zach. Flash-Smash is living free and in the wild!" Martin raised his arms as he recited the last six words, and Chris chorused along with him. "Safe and sound, back in the ocean where he belongs-"

"-where he will mercilessly bludgeon his food into tiny bits, like all those rainbow bug thingies are specifically designed by nature to do!" Zach finished.

"That's nature," Chris said placidly. "Sometimes it's sad, but it's all in balance."

Zach crossed his arms and tapped a boot impatiently on the floor. "Do you need anything else or can I go now?"

"Go where?" Jimmy asked.

"Sorry, Zach, but the Kratts Team stays together at all times. We don't have set hours and we all live in the Tortuga," Chris said smugly. "So long as you're working for us, you stay here."

"You're right," Zach said with enough sarcasm to get through even Dabio's typical level of obliviousness. "My jet is a whole  _fifty feet away_. The commute will be  _awful_ in the morning." He dropped the melodramatic tone and became belligerent instead. "I refuse to stay here another minute until my Zachbots have sanitized everything since  _all of you_  had the flu recently."

"Hmmm… point," Koki admitted. "But you know, Zach, we do clean-"

Zach rolled his eyes. "Sure you do. That's why you all got sick at the same time."

"Do we really want him sleeping in here anyway, near all our equipment?" Jimmy asked.

"And leaving him unsupervised in the jet with all  _his_  equipment is any better?" Chris asked wryly.

Martin shrugged. "Why don't we let Zach stay in his jet, but take turns watching him there?"

"What?" Zach said worriedly.

Koki snorted. "Aren't we a little old for sleepovers?"

"I don't exactly have spare bedrooms," Zach complained. "I don't care if you sleep in the jet, but you're on your own for hospitality, Wild Rats."

"Then our experienced campers can take watch," Koki concluded.

Chris sighed. "I guess."

"I've seen you guys sleep in  _trees_. On the actual branches. You can handle a jet," Koki said.

Martin stood up and stretched. "There's a difference between sleeping in nature and a cold metal floor, but I guess we could use the hammocks. There's got to be a place to hang them somewhere."

"Yeah," Zach snapped. "The utility closet. Hurry up, then – I'm tired and you two need showers before I let you in my jet. You smell like sweat, salt, and fish."

"Hey-" Martin began, walking by Zach to put his Creature Power Suit in the appropriate storage area. "Creature Venturing is kind of an active job, you know!"

"And Donita's perfume too," he added with clear distaste. "How did that happen?"

Chris rolled his eyes. "The bottle shattered from the shockwave when we used the Claw Smash power to break the aquarium glass. Along with all the windows, mirrors, and my eardrums."

Zach shrugged. "I warned you."

Martin smiled. "Yeah, that's why Chris chased Donita and Dabio out of the room before I did it. I would have felt terrible if we'd accidentally hurt them. Thanks for the heads-up." He held his hand out for Zach to high-five, but Zach cringed away and waved his hand in front of his nose.

"Shower now, thanks later," he snapped. "I'm going on ahead."

"Why?" Koki asked suspiciously.

Zach gathered his laptop and handed it to a Zachbot that had been hovering near him since he'd arrived. It sprayed the surface with something that smelled like rubbing alcohol and dried quickly. "Because after spending the day in here I need to sanitize  _myself_  now," he snapped. "I feel  _contaminated_. If I end up sick too you're on your own." He turned to the Zachbot carrying his laptop and took it back. "Give me that. Sanitize all the Workstations, Kitchen, and the Bathroom – as well as all controls on every vehicle and every doorknob, light switch and anything else icky Kratt hands touch frequently. So…everything." The bot went to do so while everyone watched it cautiously to make sure it wasn't pushing buttons or connecting to anything, but all it did was spray and wipe things down.

"Hey, you can't just-" Martin began, but Zach crossed his arms.

"No. I'm not touching anything my Zachbots haven't cleaned first. You're lucky I touched Aviva's station at all."

"You ran off and washed your hands like a surgeon immediately after," Jimmy pointed out.

"And she is currently in the hospital with something highly contagious and potentially fatal. Common sense and pretty much all of medical science says  _you're careless_ ," Zach snapped petulantly before he stormed out of the Tortuga.

Koki sighed and turned to the already exhausted Bros. "You guys better hurry. We'll keep an eye on Mr. Clean."

Chris smirked. "I am pushing him in a mud wallow the first chance I get. It'll be good for him!"

"Agreed," Martin said in kind.

The Kratt brothers put up their hands and one quick game of Rock-Paper-Scissors got Chris in the shower first. Martin got their gear together while he waited his turn.

* * *

 

"Wow," Martin said once they arrived. As usual Zach's jet was pretty big on the inside, cold, mechanical, and  _grey_. "I've been in here a few times, but never for long. I gotta say; unless there are animals or projects actively messing things up, Zach's spaces are like…"

"Eerily pristine," Chris offered. "If Zach isn't physically present it doesn't feel like anyone actually lives in them. Even the cell he put me in when he abducted all those Rhinos was spotless. Aside from the permanent smell of metal and motor oil…"

"Are you done?" Zach asked from the doorway. He was standing there in his black robe, black night clothes, and black house shoes holding a mug of tea. Despite that he had obviously just been in the shower his hair was already solidly in its usual place as if it had never been disturbed.

"Yeah, I guess. Where should we set up camp?" Chris asked.

"Ugh. I don't care. Just be quiet. I'm going to bed." Zach snapped and turned to the back area briskly.

Martin and Chris shared a surprised look.

"You actually have a bedroom in here? I thought you were kidding," They poked their heads into the doorway to see an actual chamber for a full bedroom in the back that looked like it came right out of a high rise apartment in the city. The bed was at least a full, though there was clearly a space for it to fold up into the wall. There were no windows, obviously, but closed curtains hung on the walls created the illusion of them regardless. Behind each one there seemed to be a monitor or television. To the right was an actual full sized bathroom with steam still falling out of the door like mist that smelled of strongly scented soap.

"Creature comforts indeed," Martin mumbled.

"You guys don't have bedrooms in that giant turtle?" Zach asked. "I thought there'd be at least two levels and lots of room in the base of it."

Chris shrugged. "Most of that space is storage for our vehicles, utility stuff, special features for the Creature Power Suits, the medical room, supply storage, and Aviva's second lab. We don't have bedrooms per se, more like… roomettes. Like train compartments. All we ever use them for is storing and changing our clothes and actual sleeping, so there's not much reason for big bedrooms."

"Yeah," Martin continued. "They're pretty much closets with fold-up bed platforms in one side."

"Now I'm definitely not sleeping there," Zach winced. "That sounds like  _prison_. No wonder you all caught the same thing smashed together like canned fish."

"It just makes sleeping outside all the more attractive," Chris said with a smile.

"Then go do that and leave me alone," Zach said.

Martin 'humph'ed. "Sorry, Zach. You're trouble with a capital 'T' and we're not leaving you unsupervised."

"Then shut up and go to sleep," he stated flatly, getting into bed and pushing a button on a remote on the nightstand that made the lights go out.

Chris glared in Zach's general direction. "Don't turn off the lights yet, we haven't set up!"

"I fail to see how  _you_  being slow is  _my_  problem, Wild Rats."

Martin lit the lantern he had brought with them, not from planning to but because it was already in the camping stuff he'd packed, and set up his sleeping bag. Zach didn't notice because he had put on a night mask. "Just ignore him, Bro. It's only for three weeks."

Chris winced and repeated 'three weeks' quietly as if he were being forced to shovel continuous snowfall with his hands for precisely that long.

Thankfully it was a quiet night.

**Day 2**

The next morning Martin and Chris paused in the Tortuga's doorway, eyes panning around the room in mild shock.

Koki and Jimmy were already standing by a far window doing the same thing, still in their pajamas and robes. They were drinking coffee, but aside from that nothing else had been disturbed since the Zachbot came back to the jet early that morning.

"What happened?" Chris asked.

"I gotta admit those Zachbots know how to keep house," Jimmy shrugged. "Now I know what a brand new spaceship must look like."

Koki blew into her cup to cool the top layer of her drink and took a slow sip. "I felt guilty using the coffee pot, even. I mean… it's never been really messy in here unless we were cleaning up after animals. I never thought for a second that someone was shirking their chores. Well, except maybe Martin…"

"Hey!"

Jimmy touched the windowsill behind him and examined his finger for dust. He found none. "It's like the fridge looked after we just took the bubble-wrap off, but on the  _whole Tortuga_."

Zach walked right between the Kratt brothers and toward Aviva's station. A Zachbot paused behind him and a panel opened in it's chest, from which Zach pulled out his own coffee. He leaned back and smirked at them. "Do I get to say 'I told you so' now? Because I told you it was icky in here."

Chris rolled his eyes at him and got a bottle of water out of the fridge (which now looked like it had been packed by a neurotic tetris champion). He tossed one to Martin too. "You realize there's a difference between 'neat' and 'sand-blasted'?"

"No," Zach replied tartly, and turned to begin working.

"What are you doing?" Martin asked, going to look over Zach's shoulder.

Zach turned around at batted his hands at him until he backed off. "Checking Aviva's messages. She left me a list of things to do while she's gone."

Chris tapped Zach on the shoulder. "There's a box on top of the fridge. Where did your Zachbot put the dishes?"

"In the  _box_ ," Zach drawled. "They get covered with dust if you leave them sitting out like that."

" _What_  dust!?" Koki demanded, gesturing around her.

"Exactly." Zach concluded. "Now shoo so I can do system maintenance."

The Kratts team grudgingly backed off and warily watched him from a distance.

"Uh… got any missions planned just yet?" Jimmy whispered.

Chris shook his head. "Maybe we should stay put for a few days and see how this works out."

"That might be a bad idea," Martin said quietly. "I know he'll likely turn on us the second we're in trouble or he discovers another creature he wants to roboticise, but at least we're familiar with  _that_ Zach. Do we want to know what he's like when he's  _bored_?"

Chris's eye twitched. "Okay, one day. We'll do something tomorrow. Hopefully Aviva's To-Do List can keep him busy until then."

**Day 3**

Jimmy kept the Tortuga as steady as he could while they flew through a rather nasty thunderstorm on their way to the mission the Kratt Brothers had decided on for their trial run with Varmitech on their HQ team. It was going really well thus far; Zach was going through the list that Aviva had given him and, despite his frequent and frustratingly long 'breaks' in which the Zachbots pampered him like a prince, he was behaving admirably. Koki was in her cot sleeping through the storm since she would be taking the shift watching Zach that night while Martin and Chris were cleaning their Creature Power Suits and doing the simple checks on their systems that Aviva had showed them how to do.

A panicked screech reverberated through the corridor leading to the lower level.

Chris looked up with a sigh. "…that was Zach, wasn't it?"

"Yup," Martin affirmed blankly.

"And Koki has her earplugs in," Chris said mildly. "Meaning she won't be going to see what's going on."

"Shall we investigate?" Martin asked.

Chris shrugged. "Something tells me this is either going to be depressing or hilarious."

It was a little of both.

"Do you have to keep all these animals in here!?" Zach demanded. He was standing with his back against a wall and behind a Zachbot, as far away from the glass enclosure along the other side as he could get without the ability to pass through solid objects.

"Yes," the brothers answered with identical smug grins.

"What is that thing!?" he demanded, pointing to the glass enclosure.

Chris walked over and motioned Zack to come closer to the glass to see, but Zach stayed put. "It's a  _Poecilotheria metallica_ : a metallic tarantula. They're critically endangered and this one is a female we've been given by a collector. If you look closer there's an egg sac that she's guarding. We plan to release the spiderlings into the wild. There's about 700 eggs in there and she'll guard them for about two months."

Zach shuddered. "Gross. You know, the fact that it's blue and shiny doesn't make it less of a  _huge creepy spider_!"

Martin shrugged. "Spider or not she's a good mom. Look how she's turning the eggs so they stay the right shape-"

"You should have warned me there were creepy-crawly things before I had to come down here," he complained.

"What  _are_  you doing down here?" Chris asked.

Zach tapped the tablet he was holding and turned it around to display the screen to the bros. "List Item 58. 'Check fuel levels and batteries in all vehicles before anyone gets stuck in a desert again.' Who did that?"

"Koki and Jimmy," Chris answered.

Zach crossed his arms. "Uh-huh. Anyone else?"

"No," both Kratts said a little too quickly.

Zach raised a brow and smirked before looking around him warily. "Are there any more creepy things on the way to the vehicles?"

Chris and Martin shared an amused and indulgent smile.

"Maybe we should just take you there ourselves," Martin said pleasantly.

Chris took Zach's shoulders and pushed him forward. "Before you find the snakes and the Gila Monster."

Zach groaned, but allowed them to lead him. "Will you at least tell me where we're going?"

"Africa," Martin answered.

"To drop off the spiders?" Zach asked.

"No," Chris said. "The  _Poecilotheria metallica_ is from India. We're not going to drop off the spiderlings until after they hatch in six weeks or so. We're heading to Africa to visit the Wildlife Reserve in the Congo."

"Why?"

Martin said, "You'll see when we get there."

**Day 4**

Zach yawned and walked out onto the bridge. "You might want to change course to Zaire"

"Why?" Jimmy asked.

"Because Gourmand just invited me to dinner," Zach said blandly. "I said I was too busy, but to let me know next time he caught something interesting. Thought you'd like to know," he finished with another yawn and waved off Jimmy's panic in favor of getting coffee.

Jimmy's eye twitched and he pushed the button for base-wide intercom. "Emergency course change to Zaire! Gourmand is about to cook up-" he paused and called back toward the workstations. "Zach, what did he say he was making?"

"Something called  _Oh-kah-pee_?" Zach answered blearily.

"Okapi!" Jimmy finished. He deactivated the intercom and started looking up directions.

"Those are Endangered!" Chris blurted anxiously, dropping his juice.

"I figured," Zach drawled and took a small sip before adding more cream. "Clean that up."

"What time did he say the dinner was?" Chris demanded, ignoring the spreading orange on the floor.

"Six, but I'm not sure what time zone he meant. Gourmand's not very good at consistency. If he invites me to breakfast in Australia it generally means I'll be eating a late dinner by their time zone, but still breakfast by my usual schedule. Occasionally he'll refer to the time zone he is currently in without letting me know what the time will be where I'm supposed to go; it's all pretty confusing without a confirmation call." Zach said, backing away from the juice as it started spreading toward him due to the floor level shifting when Jimmy changed direction. "Are you going to get that?"

"So there's no telling when he's going to start preparing?" Chris continued doggedly. "Wait, you said no… Will he still cook the Okapi if he doesn't have any customers?"

"Usually, yes. He still has to feed himself, doesn't he? Besides, Donita accepted on the conference call because he promised her the skin when he was done with the rest of it. It must be something neat looking."

Chris shuddered in disgust and ran off to get Martin, who was still below.

"Hey!" Zach shouted after him, then sighed and motioned for a Zachbot to clean the floor. Koki walked over and punched Zach's arm. "Ow! What was that for!?" he demanded.

"That last bit of explanation was  _not needed_ ," she snapped. "Now get on making those discs already."

Zach rubbed his arm and glared. "You have to look it up for me first. I don't even know what it is."

She went to her station and did so, moving aside so that Zach could see the display better from where he was.

"Are these things zebras or donkeys?" Zach asked, then looked back to Jimmy, who had set the course and autopilot and came out to take part in the planning process. "The stripy little horse thingies are 'Zebras', right?" Jimmy nodded patiently.

"Neither," Koki said as she scanned through the text accompanying the picture. "The okapis' closest genetic relative is the giraffe."

Zach paused and looked to the picture again. "What? This doesn't look anything like a…" he paused while he got the right word round in his head. "Giraffe! It looks like someone went all Frankenstein in a Zoo and put bits of different things together –  _none of which was a giraffe_!"

"Still a giraffe," Koki said firmly. Behind her, Martin and Chris came back up from the lower levels and looked over her shoulder. "Giraffes evolved to fit the environment they lived in, gaining a different pattern for camouflage and growing much taller to be able to reach the leaves at the tops of trees. Meanwhile a different branch of the same root group continued to be mostly unchanged because they kept living in the environment they evolved up till that point to fit in the first place. So you end up with two relatives of the same root species that evolved look very different over millions of years."

Zach sighed and palmed his face. "Nature is weird."

Chris laughed. "Evolution is like that. At least you can use the Giraffe Disc as a basis for the new program. Usually we can use similar discs for animals that are very close, but the okapi and giraffe are a bit far apart for that to work."

"If you want to be giraffes then just use the discs you already have!" Zach said tersely. "Why do you want to be freaky little giraffes that look like they were smashed and painted?"

Martin went over to Koki's station. "May I?" he asked, and she moved aside for him. He typed in a few things and pulled up an image of some fossils. "Okapi have been around basically unchanged since the Miocene Epoch. They're living fossils! You know what living fossils are, right?"

"No, but I'd give my jet for a well-placed meteor right about now." Zach's eyes narrowed and he spoke incredulously. "The best selling point you have on this is that they're really OLD giraffes?"

Koki frowned. "Just make the discs, Zach. And fast, before Gourmand contributes to the depletion of an already depleted population."

Zach turned the chair around and began typing as if each individual key had somehow insulted him. "Fine. Maybe the codes will be more interesting than most mammals."

Koki blinked and walked over to look over Zach's shoulder. "How can the codes be more or less interesting? It's just a bunch of letters and numbers to me."

"Those groups of letters and numbers represent nucleobases, base-pairs, and hydrogen bonds. While I was looking back into the previous disc programs I found out that the genetic sequences for frogs is nearly twice the length of most mammals," he said simply. "Lots of loops and things that make them more complicated."

Martin stared, clearly impressed. "Have you been  _studying this_?"

Zach snorted. "I'm doing the work, aren't I? When I accept a contract I have to learn how to do the job."

The Wild Kratts team began to look uneasy and watched Zach program with a new, deeper wariness than before.

"Zebras!" Jimmy said suddenly. "He actually knew the word! And he said 'giraffes' too. This may have been a  _very_  bad idea."

"I'm gonna go call Aviva," Koki said and rushed to her station.

Chris raised a hand to pull Zach away from the station, but Martin grabbed his arm instead and pulled him back into a huddle. "Give him a chance, bro. I think Aviva's got a plan."

"Her plan is teaching Zach  _everything we know_ ," Chris hissed urgently. "That definitely seems like a bad thing to me."

Martin nodded. "I know but think of it this way; now he won't need to use animals as a part of his inventions. That's a good thing, right?"

"Huh…" Chris voiced in slight surprise. "He'll have to change that silly business intro, then. Something like, 'Varmitech Industries; Stealing from Nature since I was Five Years Old'!"

Martin snorted and covered his mouth to stifle it, but it was too late.

" _I can hear all of you!_ " Zach yelled sharply and stood like he'd been sitting on a tack. " _Zachbots!_ "

Each Kratt member found themselves held up off the floor by their own Zachbot and held in a line. All of them struggled and protested loudly to this rough treatment, but Zach pointed to each one in turn and they stopped to hear him.

"You two go put your Creature Power Suits on and get ready to go the moment I'm done making these discs," he said to Martin and Chris. "I will not be blamed for this stupid creature rescue failing because I was doing my job and you weren't ready for yours!" Then he pointed to Koki. "You call Aviva and tell her to stop plotting things that involve me." Next he pointed to Jimmy. "You fly us to Zaire so Thing One and Thing Two can save the Zebra-Donkey thingies that  _still look nothing like Giraffes_."

"Question," Martin said suddenly. "Which of us is 'Thing One'?"

Zach palmed his face tiredly. "Ugh… the Green Guy."

"Wha? But I'm older! That isn't fair," Martin protested while Chris grinned at him. "I want to be 'Thing One'!"

"You're 'Thing Two' because it rhymes with blue, and the joke still works if I say 'Thing Green' and 'Thing Blue'," Zach explained tiredly.

"HA!" Chris laughed in satisfaction.

"Aw," Martin groaned. "I didn't think you'd have a  _reason_ …"

Zach pointed to a leftover Zachbot, which had just finished mopping up Chris's juice. "Make me coffee. And all of you stop talking about me like I'm not actually here! This is not the playground and I'm not picking on your precious varmints,  _not currently_ , and treating me like a third wheel while I'm helping you is really not within my tolerance level right after I wake up!"

The Zachbots dropped them and there was a moment in which nobody knew what to do with themselves. Jimmy was the first to move. He sighed and went to the cockpit. Koki bit her lip, then grit her teeth, bunched her fists, and went to ask Aviva what the heck she thought she was doing hiring Varmitech in the first place. Martin looked like he was about to drag Zach out of the Tortuga by his ear, but Chris put an arm out to stop him and smiled.

"Zach," he began.

"What do you want?"

"We will stop talking about you as if you aren't in the room, and I apologize for doing it in the first place."

Martin gave him a look of disbelief.

Zach did too. "Really?"

Chris smiled and continued. "And Martin and I will do as you say this time on one condition."

Zach raised a brow and crossed his arms. "I'm listening."

"For the duration of this contract you have to switch to decaf after noon," Chris said triumphantly. "If nothing else it might be messing with your sleep."

Zach seemed to think about it, and then turned back to his work. "Fine."

Martin blinked in surprise and then followed Chris down to their compartments in the base of the Tortuga. "You handled that pretty well, bro. I'll call it a draw."

Chris shrugged. "Aviva has given us lots of practice dealing with the hissy-fits of enraged engineers. Besides, comparatively he didn't do anything more annoying than the time Jimmy locked us out of the Tortuga when we forgot to buy his pizzas."

"That's a good point. I guess he can't be too bad if he's actually doing what we hired him to do, even if he is loud and annoying about it," Martin admitted. "And we might not have known about the danger to the Okapi if he hadn't told us in the first place."

Chris nodded. "Yeah. Zach even refused to go to Gourmand's too. That by itself is pretty cool."

* * *

 

Back at Aviva's workstation Zach continued coding even after his phone rang and displayed Donita's number. He didn't pick up because he knew the video was still on from that morning when he had been in the jet, but he did accidentally nudge it with his elbow and caused it to drop onto the floor. He was so involved in trying to figure out how to adjust the vertebrae thickness in the ridiculous neck from Giraffe to Okapi that he didn't notice the slide along the workstation had answered for him.

Unfortunately the screen was pointed up, thus the camera was too.

Donita stared for only a second or two before she realized what Zach was doing. In the background behind her Dabio blinked, started to speak, and stopped when Donita slapped a hand over his mouth to stop him. She immediately hung up and called Gourmand, who was singing and sharpening a knife while two young Okapi whined in the background.

"You will not  _believe_  what I just saw our dear Zach doing, Gaston."

"Gossip? Do tell."

"I just saw him tinkering around inside the Wild Kratts base! I think they've actually got him working for them!" she said gleefully.

Gourmand raised a brow and faced the screen on his phone, then put down his knife. "Why would they need Zach? They've got an inventor. A better one."

Donits huffed and crossed her arms. "Oh, who cares? Maybe she quit."

After a moment of considering that, Gaston went back to work. "Well, at least they still have the same number of girls on their team."

Donita and Dabio burst into laughter and only stopped long enough to get confirmation on dinnertime.

* * *

 

The rescue mission was successful. Martin and Chris managed to release the two captive Okapi and confuse Donita, Dabio, and Gourmand by running between them and the escaping animals in their Okapi forms to confuse them on which ones they had to capture. Luckily, the real Okapi got away.

Unfortunately, now  _they_ were the targets.

Chris and Martin ran along the dense forested path, well suited to moving in the tightly packed vegetation while Dabio struggled to push his way through after them. Though they were making progress there was more to be said for Dabio's stamina than anyone really wanted to admit, mostly because it would verify a lot of suspicions on why Donita tolerated him in the first place.

"Okay," Martin panted tiredly. "Dabio, like a wolf, is very much *gasp* a marathon runner!"

Chris took a few deep breaths and replied, "Even though Okapi can reach speeds up to 37 miles per hour, that doesn't apply while dodging trees, and we'll definitely get tired before that muscle-head does! He's totally going to catch us. What do we do?"

"Wolf Discs!" Martin said. "Chris, I'll lead Dabio away while you change and call HQ for Jimmy to teleport the discs. You hide!"

"Right, got it," Chris said, and leapt to the side of the path to crouch down and disguise himself in the shrubs. Chris paused long enough for Dabio to see him again and sped off into the woods again. Predictably, Dabio followed.

As soon as he passed by Chris stood up and bumped into a tree to deactivate his suit. He called HQ on his creature pod and took a few deep breaths while he waited for them to answer.

"Chris, what's up?" Jimmy said cheerfully.

"Wolf Discs. Teleport. Now," he gasped. "Martin needs it fast!"

"Got it!" Jimmy leapt up out of his chair and went to get them.

Back at the Tortuga Zach cackled as he watched everyone rush around. "Trouble?"

"Hush up and do your job, Zach," Koki said sharply.

"I'm done. And I will now use my free time to enjoy watching all this chaos." He stood and stretched, then moved to Jimmy's station and leaned back against the chair's back to have a better view.

Koki frowned and turned back to her screen, determined to ignore him. "Hang tight, guys."

Just then Jimmy rushed toward the Teleporter with the discs. "Got 'em!" He did not, however, expect Zach to be in his way when he hurried toward his destination. In his hurry to get the Wolf Discs to the Kratts as fast as he could he barreled right into Zach and knocked him back onto the Teleporter. The Wolf Discs went flying and knocked Jimmy's controller halfway off the side of his station, where it balanced there precariously.

Zach had just enough time to sit up on his knees on the Teleporter pad and shout, Hey!" before the controller tipped, fell onto its top, and activated it.

Zach disappeared, Koki's jaw dropped, and Jimmy cringed.

"Is that thing safe for living things?" she asked quietly.

"I... don't know," Jimmy answered. "Even if it is, we're extremely lucky that all of him was inside the beam at once."

Koki put a hand over her mouth and swallowed. "Where were you aiming?"

"Martin."

"Call him. Now."

* * *

 

Martin was nearing the end of his endurance when something crashed into him out of nowhere, knocking him completely off his feet and hitting the button on his suit, leaving him sprawled on the path and out of breath with something heavy on his chest. He lay stunned for a moment or two before his Creature Pod rang and he lifted his arm to answer it.

Koki's worried face appeared very close to the screen. "Martin, is Zach with you?"

"Zach?" Martin asked in a daze.

"He got sent in the Teleporter," she said hesitantly. "It was an accident. Just tell me he's ok."

Martin's eyes widened and he sat up slowly, one arm around what he  _hoped_  was an intact Zach. After a brief look-over and realizing that he was breathing and merely looked dazed and confused Martin let out a relief whoosh of breath. "Good news - the Teleporter works!"

Koki and Jimmy had very much the same reaction from their side of the video feed.

"Yay," Zach drawled acidly. "Now tell Dabio how he should let us go in the light of a major scientific discovery."

Martin froze and turned to see the hulking blonde looming over them. "Aw, poo."

Zach reached out and hit the button on Martin's suit in the hopes that he could at least start running again now that he'd had a short break, but it merely clicked and sparked. "You broke it!?"

Dabio hiked both of them up and tossed them over his shoulders to carry back to Gourmand's temporary setup.

Martin held up his hands helplessly as Zach glared evilly at him from across Dabio's back. "Uh... technically you broke it when you hit me."

* * *

 

"If I could fit through that window I would leave you and those zonkeys here for dinner, Wild Rat," Zach said darkly. They were in a storage room in the back of Gourmand's riverside setup, locked in until the attending villains could figure out what to do with them. For a fold-out portable kitchen the place was amazingly sturdy.

Martin rolled his eyes. "You know the right word; I heard you say 'okapi' earlier. Why do you keep saying 'zonkeys'?"

"Because it's annoying you."

Martin balked, then frowned, then took a calming breath. "Nevermind. Now how do we get out of this?"

"I don't know!"

Martin crossed his arms and groaned. "Well, they're your uh... acquaintances-"

Zach rolled his eyes. "That is so wrong I don't even know where to start explaining it."

Martin groaned. "So we're stuck until Chris comes to help. Do you have any advice for dealing with Gourmand?"

"Yeah," the pale man said blithely. "Never eat anything he won't explicitly identify. Endangered  _animals_ aren't the only living things it's illegal to cook with."

Martin's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. "I thought he was kidding when he said Chris would be dessert after the Platypus eggs!"

"Yeah, me too; then he invited me back a month later. I don't even want to think about where he got the meat."

"Did you…?"

"No; I'm not going to eat something if I don't know what it is, or if I do know and it's  _people_! I'm not sure about Donita and Dabio, though. Just be thankful he never makes the same meal twice."

Martin shuddered and his eyes stared off into nothing in shock.

Zach called out for his Zachbots futilely, banged on the wall, pulled at the hinges and sat down to pout. "My Zachbots are too far away and Donita took all my controllers so I can't summon them manually. Your suit is busted and I can't fix it without my tools, and the door is too thick for you to break it down. I hate to say it, Martin, but you're the expert at these creature rescue thingies; well, technically we're creatures. So, what do we do?" No answer came and Zach turned around. "Blue boy?" he asked again, waving his hands in front of vacant blue eyes. "Hello! Still trying to escape!"

Finally he screamed, "MARTIN!" and smacked the unresponsive man across the face as hard as he could. They both shouted at the same time in reaction to the sting, then Martin glared venomously while Zach shook his stinging hand, wincing. He answered Martin's glare with one of his own while he rubbed the shock out of his hand. "Look, don't be too freaked out to do anything useful, ok? That's MY thing! If you're relying on me to be the brave one here we're done!"

"Alright, fine. Just give me a minute to think."

"I'm guessing it'll be a very long minute," Zach said wryly and turned away to stare at the small, high window and wished for the second time he could fit through it.

Suddenly he found himself sitting on Martin's shoulders because the idiot had charged at him from behind like they were children playing leap-frog. Startled, Zach shrieked and latched his hands firmly in Martin's hair, resolving that if he was going to be taken down he was taking a few fistfuls of dumb blonde with him. "What are you doing!?"

"Helping you reach that panel on the ceiling."

"Put me down! I only let things carry me that I've specifically programmed to do that!"

"So, basically you trust machines more than people."

"…was that not clear?" Zach asked wryly. "We've known each other since we were literally two feet tall. How do you not know that?"

Martin frowned. "Look, we're out of options and your robots aren't here; you'll have to trust me. Now, can you or can you not open that panel?"

"It's screwed shut and I don't have any tools."

"You always have tools!" Martin snapped. "What about that multi-tool thing you keep in your shoe?"

Zach hesitated. "Donita took it when she got all my remotes."

Martin lifted a brow. "Searched you pretty well, didn't she?"

Zach growled. "Donita tends to do that. How's your  _modelling career_  by the way? There's only one way you could have gotten into that stupid outfit while stuck in that pose-beam and Dabio was outside with me setting up."

Martin glared and opened his mouth to argue that, then recollection dawned and he dug into his pocket. "Wait, I think I've got something." He proudly held up a bit of silverware he'd stuck in his pocket that morning. They hadn't taken anything from Martin but his Creature Pod because his suit was damaged and that was usually all he had that was an issue.

"Do you even know what's in there?" Zach asked blankly. "You want me to unscrew this potentially dangerous panel with a butter knife?"

"Well, you'd have to let go of my hair first." Martin winced.

"But-"

"I will NOT drop you."

Zach groaned and slowly let go. After a moment of maintained stability in his support he sighed before taking the knife. "Fine, but not a word of this to anyone, Wild Rat." He hesitated upon seeing how much higher the panel still was, bracing his arm on the top of Martin's head. He'd have to stretch pretty far to reach it, meaning there would be no secure handhold if Martin swayed and he very much didn't want to fall.

Martin grinned. "Aviva could do it," he challenged.

Immediately Zach started twisting the screws with the knife's tip and grumbling obscenities. "Just be still. One false move and we could both end up fried if this turns out to be electrical or something."

"Relax, I help Chris into trees and stuff all the time. Besides, you're lighter than Aviva."

Zach paused, looked down and raised a brow. "I'm positive there isn't a difference of more than ten pounds between me and Corcovado, if that. That's a pretty narrow variable for someone at your fitness level to notice."

Martin arched a brow obliviously. "So?"

"How often does she get a Kratt-ride exactly?" Zach asked pointedly.

Martin instantly looked as if he was looking down the barrel of a cannon. "Uh…" He then grit his teeth and glared. "Not a  _word_ , Varmitech."

"You started it," Zach snapped.

"How do you know how much Aviva weighs, anyway?" Martin asked suspiciously.

"My Zachbots process information on their surroundings continuously; I never know what will be useful later and what won't so all Zachbots are in constant contact with a central processor they all share. In addition to everything else they keep tabs on they weigh anything they pick up automatically."

"So you know how much everyone weighs?" Martin asked.

"If my Zachbots have lifted them recently, yes." Zach replied blandly. "You should tell Koki to stop eating so many of Jimmy's brownies, by the way."

"Do you  _want_  me to drop you?"

Zach's hands immediately went back to clutching Martin's head. "No!"

"Then shut up and open the panel."

"…kay."

Not long after that the panel clattered to the floor. Martin strained to see. "What is it?"

"Outlets, probably to make this room a backup kitchen for big events," Zach said blandly. "Now put me down- uh..." Zach's eyes widened as he caught sight of something outside the window. "And back away from the wall."

Martin knelt so Zach could step down. "Why? What did you see?"

"A green elephant," Zach said simply, backing up to the far wall.

Martin grinned and cringed when the wall collapsed under Chris's charge.

"Hi guys!" he said triumphantly. "Zach, good to see you in one piece."

Zach ran past him and out toward freedom. "Whatever, let's just get out of here before they catch us!"

"I brought the Manta Riders." Chris said to Martin, deactivating his suit. "Let's go."

Of course they couldn't resist celebrating as they left yet another successful creature rescue. Zach wound up on Martin's Manta Rider and had to put up with his sufer-like method of piloting it.

"Stop getting so close to the rocks!" Zach demanded.

"Oh, relax. I know what I'm doing," Martin said confidently just before the rider bucked beneath them from a small impact.

"You idiot!" Zach punched him weakly in the side while Martin laughed sheepishly.

As they approached the Tortuga at a speed that made Zach hold on for dear life, Martin suddenly realized that he'd hit something on that last sharp turn, ripping a gouge into the underside of his Manta Rider and damaging it. He couldn't slow it down.

"Uh-oh…"

"Don't say that!" Zach shrieked. "That is  _never_ a good thing to say while driving!"

Martin tried to change direction so he could follow the river until a better idea presented itself, but that didn't seem to be working either. They were going to miss the ramp and ram straight into the Tortuga. Unless they wanted to be tenderized crocodile food they'd have to jump into the water before they hit. Whereas Martin was accustomed to this sort of thing and knew how to handle it, he sincerely doubted his passenger had the same advantage.

Quickly Martin looped his arm around Zach's waist and yanked him off the Manta Rider. "Sorry Zach!"

Zach screeched and tried to grab on again but Martin had his wrists locked with his remaining hand, standing on the rider with no handhold like an expert surfer. "What are you doing!?"

Martin ignored him. "CHRIS! THINK FAST!"

"Huh!?" Chris asked, turning to look at his brother just in time to notice what was going on. In one swift motion Martin widened his stance and tossed Zach over ten feet. It was a small miracle that he hit Chris dead-on. Chris managed to catch him and not crash into the water, but just barely. Once Zach was stable and no longer screaming Chris looked up just in time to see Martin's Manta Rider smash into the Tortuga with a sickening crunch; severely damaging the right rear propulsion engine on their base and snapping the Rider in half on impact.

"MARTIN!" he yelled. Zach managed to get a good grip on Chris just before they sped off toward the accident.

Jimmy and Koki were already there after hearing the impact and yelling for Martin as they frantically searched the water. Chris leapt off his Manta Rider to do the same while Zach clutched his chest as if he were having a heart attack and tried to catch his breath.

Seconds later, Martin surfaced, spluttering. "Hi, bro. Did I miss?" he asked Chris worriedly when he didn't spot Zach at first. "Oh, there he is."

Jimmy, Koki, and Chris let out a whoosh of breath in relief and Chris reached out to help Martin onto the Tortuga. "You scared us!"

Zach blinked. "Hey. You  _threw me_!" he said accusingly at Martin.

"My Manta Rider was damaged and I couldn't stop or steer," he explained.

"Because you were getting too close to the rocks like I said!" Zach protested.

Martin sighed. "Okay, you have a point. But I didn't think you'd appreciate hitting a giant metal turtle at forty miles per hour, and I didn't think you'd fare much better hitting the water either; but I'm trained for it. Besides, Chris caught you."

Jimmy gasped suddenly and clapped his hands a few times as an idea struck him. "Guys, you're brilliant! You've just invented a new game!"

"We have?" Martin asked in confusion.

Koki caught on and snickered. "Yeah! Zach-Ball! He's obviously light enough for you guys to toss around over decent distances."

Jimmy continued teasingly while Zach opened his mouth to protest and nothing really came out but nervous splutters. "I call Martin has the first point. Maybe we could hook up the badminton net on two sides of a river or pond, because tossing over water is essential in case someone drops him. Koki, get a notepad! We need rules for this!"

"Won't his flailing and yelling make it more difficult to toss and catch him?" Chris asked.

Martin grinned. "That'd just make it more fun."

Zach found his voice and seethed, stomping his foot for emphasis. "No! No,  _NO, **NO!**_ "

"…spoilsport," Chris smirked.

Zach held out both hands as if to strangle Jimmy, then growled and put them down again. He tried to speak calmly, which means that his tone was slightly less caustic than lye. "Koki, are you forgetting that we now have to  _fix_  all this damage!?"

Koki's eyes widened in shock and then her face fell into a mask of annoyance and disappointment. "Oh… yeah. I'll get the toolboxes."

**Day 5**

**[Are you dead yet?]** Zach texted Aviva.

It was probably not the best way to begin a conversation, but after being up all night with Koki trying to get both the Tortuga and the Manta Riders in working order again it was as polite as he was capable of being at the moment. Zach was about ready to storm out and leave these idiots to deal with their own problems and intended to tell Aviva at great length about how stupid she was for working with them to begin with. A good rant would do wonders for his ability to sleep the morning away, which was exactly what he would need considering Jimmy would be taking the shift to supervise him and he wasn't certain how well he would be able to sleep through the video game noise.

Unfortunately he would have to wait for her to call him on the station first and that had occasionally failed to happen in the past few days. Martin had called the hospital in a panic once and discovered that Aviva was just asleep and the nurses had taken her computer and creature pod away from her to make sure she would stay that way. As predicted, Aviva was not easily separated from her technology for long.

Aviva's video didn't come on for a sufficiently irritating period of time, but she eventually answered. She was pale and looked as if an animal had recently tried to build a nest out of her hair. When she saw Zach and sensed his frustration she answered with a little grin that absolutely did not belong on someone that ill.

 **[Are you ready to give up yet?]**  she typed.

"No," he snapped defensively and immediately regretted it. There went his 'I quit' speech. Now that she had issued the challenge, however, Zach would be damned if he was going to quit. She'd be insufferably pleased about it forever.

Aviva put her chin in her hands and smugly regarded him in a way that made him want to reach through the screen and strangle her. She lazily used her left hand to pluck out her next message while the right continued to rest under her chin. Undoubtedly she thought she was cute. Zach disagreed. Mostly.

**[It's weird for you to be up this early, Zach. Do you need help?]**

The second challenge made him bristle. "Yes, I need help figuring out why you never put a remote deactivator for the Creature Power Suits on your 'To-Do List'. It seems like an  _abysmally obvious_ safety feature that should have been in the original plans, or at the very least an afterthought due to the number of times they have either malfunctioned, been lost, stolen, or hacked."

**[You're actually telling me to improve a system that you have broken into? Why?]**

"So it'll be more fun to break in next time! Your codes are too easy to amuse me for long!" he snapped, and ended the call.

If nothing else he hoped hanging up on his rival would sufficiently infuriate her to cause another coughing fit. His plan blown by a combination of pride, poor planning, and lack of sleep, Zach headed toward the Tortuga's exit to the sanctuary of his jet. On the way there he encountered more stupid than he was prepared to deal with.

"Jimmy! We'll order you a new controller, ok?" Chris said. "Or fly into the nearest city to get one there."

The entire Wild Kratts team was standing around their Pilot, who was sitting in a near-fetal position and clutching his controller. His eye was twitching and he didn't reply, at least not coherently.

Koki had her hands over her mouth in worry, but took them down to speak. "How did it break anyway?"

"I think it just got old," Martin said weakly." He uses it a lot, so it wore out. When he tried using it this morning there was a click and nothing would respond."

Zach growled, pushed Chris out of his way, and snatched the controller.

"Hey!" the vocal three snapped at him instantly.

"What are you-" Koki began, then stopped and watched as Zach pulled out a small set of screwdrivers and started to dismantle the overused device.

Over the next several minutes Zach repaired the controller, which had honestly just been the victim of normal wear and tear, and gave it back to Jimmy. The avid gamer was instantly happy again and hugged it like it was a stuffed animal.

"Stop breaking things," Zach hissed, and stalked off to go to bed.

"Uh… thanks?" Martin called after him.

"Isn't it Jimmy's turn to watch him?" Chris asked after Zach had left.

Koki sighed. "I got it," and went to get something to read while she waited for him to wake up.

**Day 6**

After the fiasco the day before and Zach's subsequent foul temper from his now very skewed sleeping schedule the Wild Kratts used the next day to plan a new mission, restock, and check up on Aviva. Zach stayed in his jet and worked on projects for other clients after being told he had a day off, but he went back into the Tortuga after he was finished to see if anything had gone horribly awry while he was otherwise occupied. It wouldn't have surprised him.

It was dark by the time he went to do this. He correctly assumed that everyone would either be asleep or preparing to go to bed and Jimmy was already asleep in his jet after Zach's working schedule apparently passed his naptime. Zach tried only fleetingly to wake him and gave up after less than a minute, thus he was left alone in the Tortuga's main area unsupervised for a blessed half hour during which he did  _absolutely nothing wrong_  out of spite in the hopes of making his constant supervision seem increasingly stupid and unfair.

It was after 10 when Aviva called.

Zach answered the beeping console and raised a brow when Aviva's tired face displayed. Her hair was properly brushed and tied back, she was wearing enough makeup to give her somewhat of a normal skin tone but not enough to be obvious, and she was dressed in red silk pajamas that Zach assumed her mother had brought to make her more comfortable in the hospital. She even had earrings in.

"Given that you've prettied up before calling I'm guessing you were expecting Martin," Zach smirked, relishing in her look of awkward surprise.

**[How do you know that?]**

"Because I can count without holding up my fingers," he said simply.

Aviva let out a frustrated sigh and immediately changed the subject. **[I heard you fixed Jimmy's controller.]**

Zach shrugged and stirred his herbal tea. "That's what you do here, right?"

**[It isn't really an obligation to fix the personal items of those you work with. It's a courtesy. So thanks.]**

"His hissy fit was irritating," he said blandly. "Besides, he uses that controller to operate the Teleporter. I don't trust him using buttons he isn't familiar with. If I didn't fix the controller I was afraid he'd accidentally send any future discs to Mars."

Aviva smiled at him and sat back to rest.  **[Still.]**

"How long will it be before you can talk anyway?"

**[Another week or so. I'm supposed to resist coughing if at all possible, so I shouldn't talk until the sore throat and congestion goes down. It definitely seems to be getting better. I can take deeper breaths.]**

Zach huffed. "Good. I don't know how much longer I can stand working with these people. I gotta admit though, working on those genetic codes is pretty fun. I can see why you like doing it. I'm actually looking forward to an amphibian code. They're  _massive_  in comparison to mammals. I mean… some of those 'living fossil' things Koki told me about, like the Tuatara, have between five and six billion base pairs in the DNA sequence, and humans only have a little over three billion base pairs. I really thought mammals would have been  _more_  complicated instead of _less_  complicated…"

**[That's because DNA is like a recipe. As certain instructions become redundant in relation to the rest of the code they don't get written into the new version.]**

"How's that?" Zach asked, suddenly very interested.

Aviva sat up straighter and pulled up some video from an earlier Wild Kratts mission to observe Crocodiles. She displayed relevant bits of video while explaining in a different text window.

**[When Crocodiles lay their eggs the gender of the hatchlings is determined by what temperature the eggs are incubated at. It's vaguely like setting the temperature on an oven when making a pizza; for crispier crust you cook it at a higher temperature for a shorter period of time, and for softer crust you use a lower temperature over a longer period. For Crocodiles you get more females if the eggs are incubated at 86 °F or less and a pretty even number of males and females at 88 °F, but at 90 to 91 °F you get mostly males.]**

"That's weird. And complicated," Zach said simply.

**[Yes it is complicated. And it requires a LOT of instructions in the recipe, meaning a longer DNA sequence. Different enzymes are released at different temperatures to create different genders. Besides that there's the temperature control of the creature itself, which requires lots of different enzymes at different temperatures too, the code to make the hard egg, the instinct to bury them and how and where… all that has to be in the genome for the animal to survive and reproduce.**

**But when you grow mammals, except for the Platypus and Echidna which still lay eggs, the babies are grown inside the mom. The oven temperature is standard and already controlled by a separate section of the sequence regarding maintaining core temperature in the adult. So when it comes time to grow the baby the oven is always going to be the same; the recipe doesn't need to note what chemicals are needed to make what gender depending on how hot or cold things get, and there are no codes needed on how to make the hard eggs able to survive outside because the baby stays inside the mom until it can survive without external support.**

**As evolution progressed toward mammals certain instructions became redundant and since they weren't needed anymore they got eliminated from the recipe, shortening the genome. This process happened in lots and lots of little ways until it took only about half of the code to make a mammal rather than a reptile. If you really think about it all organisms are sort of like molecular computers.]**

Zach blinked. "Huh… that makes a scary amount of sense when you say it like that.

**[Right! Your inventions might work a lot better if you based them on animals rather than using the animals themselves. It would be easier now that you have a better idea of how the animals actually work and how they relate to things you're already good at.]**

Zach crossed his arms and sat back in the chair, giving her a suspicious look. "I know you're manipulating me. Blue Boy thought as much, too. It won't work."

Aviva persisted.

**[You've already done it. With the Praying Mantis arms, remember? There's no way that tiny mantis you had in your vest was actually powering those arms. I'll bet you just had it there for decoration and you figured out how to make the mantis arms work roughly the same way I did for the Creature Power Suit. Letting you see my inventions, the things I can do with animal abilities, isn't letting you steal. It's just advancing the inevitable. You would have figured it out on your own eventually and we both know it.]**

"You just want me to leave the animals alone," he accused.

**[That is definitely a large part of my reasoning, but you have more talent than you realize, Zach. I'm trying to help you develop it. Is it really so bad working this way; making things without using the animals themselves? If nothing else programs and machines are easier to deal with directly.]**

Zach stared at her for a long moment before seeming to melt back into the chair wearily. "…I'll consider it."

Aviva smiled and nodded appreciatively. **[I guess breaking it down into a series of chemicals and codes made it a little simpler for you. You always did understand facts and numbers easier than people or nature.]**

"To be fair… so did you. For a while," Zach said accusingly. There was a strained pause while they stared at each other. "Did you ever tell your pet Wild Rat how you know so much about me? Favorite color, number and all that?" he asked. "I don't have that sixth toe anymore, by the way," he added quickly. "I had it removed after High School. That six you used to hack my Zachbots represented something else. You got lucky is all."

**[I guess I did.]**

"Well?"

Aviva shook her head. **[You were a decent childhood sweetheart, but I didn't know any other people that could handle technology the way I did. That was really all it was, Zach. We just got along in one specific way that nobody else could offer me at the time. I was worried if I told Martin we used to date he'd think I would only be interested in technology-oriented people.]**

Zach considered being angry about that, but it wasn't as if she'd said she was ashamed of him or anything, and the reason did sort of make sense. "I'm surprised you didn't go for the Green Guy instead. He's the slightly smarter one."

**[It's not an easy thing to explain. That's just the way it happened. I was really trying to keep my relationships professional, but Martin sort of started the whole thing.]**

"So he made the first move," Zach said a bit bitterly. "That works. I guess."

Aviva sighed. **[It's been surprisingly nice talking to you, but could you get Martin before I get nagged about going to sleep, please?]**

"I didn't have any other technology-oriented friends either after you left, you know. Not any that were remotely at our level," Zach blurted acidly, then frowned and turned away. The accidental compliment had surprised both of them. "I'll let Blue Boy know you're waiting."

Aviva typed,  **[Thanks, Zach.]**  but he didn't see it. He had already left.

As he passed the bathroom on the way back from Martin's compartment he heard the distinctive sound of glass shattering. After only a minor silent hissy fit which consisted largely of clenching his fist and dancing in place like an epileptic he knocked on the door and wearily asked, "What was that?"

Koki answered, but hesitantly. "The mirror. What are you doing in here? Is Jimmy with you?"

"Getting milk for my tea," he said simply. "I'm out. And no; he was asleep and waking him up is  _impossible_. Where's the spare mirror?"

"I don't think we have one. I'll run into town and get it tomorrow."

"Fine. Goodnight," he said sharply and left for his jet.

**Day 7**

Koki had cleaned up the glass and gone to town before Zach got back the next day, but he still went to check on it anyway. Of the Kratts Team he was the most tolerant of Koki; she researched the animals for him, knew where the maintenance stuff and tools were, and generally cleaned up her own messes. On that last note Jimmy seemed make a lot of messes, but cleaned the ones he made as well as other people's messes too if the Zachbots didn't get to them first.

The Kratt brothers were still beyond obnoxious, though.

Zach grumbled to himself as he worked on repairing Aviva's Invention Kit, or what now qualified as a Mobile Disc Generator. He planned to have it functioning again as a backup before something happened to Aviva's station; which was very likely at the rate these nature-loving people destroyed things, albeit unintentionally. After only seven days Zach had experienced two unnerving epiphanies. One, he had a new, deeper respect for Aviva and the work she did here and; two, a certainty that she already knew what it would feel like to be a single mother of four children under the age of five.

As time passed he felt less annoyed by their constant supervision of him and more relieved that at least one of them would be in his line of sight at all times, thus allowing him to figure out who had broken what more easily. The prime suspects were always blue or green.

"I can't believe I've been here a  _whole week_ ," he whined as he switched to a different tool.

"Neither can I," Chris said mildly as he flipped through a magazine for camping and climbing equipment nearby, marking down things the team needed. Martin was doing a similar list for fishing, diving, and general water-related things. "But it seems to be working out ok."

Zach just growled and made a conspicuously worse amount of noise while he worked in the hopes of distracting the lounging Kratts. There was no discernible reaction until Zach tried to turn the thing over to work from a different angle and strained to do so. He gave up quickly and had a Zachbot turn it over instead.

"It's no wonder you don't have much upper body strength if you have your Zachbots do everything for you," Chris said placidly.

"Chris," Martin chided, flipping the page in his own magazine. "Be nice."

"I was just making an observation," Chris finished defensively. "Am I wrong?"

"Well…" Martin hesitated.

Zach crossed his arms. "Are you done?"

Chris shrugged noncommittally.

They were silent until Zach needed it turned again and his Zachbot was off cleaning some windows. Zach tried to move it himself quietly enough for the Kratts not to notice and failed when his fingers slipped and he dropped it just enough to make a small thud.

"Need me to lift that for you?" Chris asked immediately.

Zach glared. "No."

"Alright. Just let me or Martin know if you need help-"

Gritting his teeth out of frustration only had the undesirable effect of making it look like Zach was struggling to lift the device even more than he already was. " _No, thank you_ ," he ground out forcefully.

Chris lifted a brow. "You're sure?" he teased one last time.

" _Chris_ ," Martin warned wearily.

Zach put the Mobile Disc Generator down and snapped, "OUT!" Chris broke and fled laughing while Zach threw blank Creature Power Discs at his back.

Martin rolled his eyes. "Sorry, Zach."

Going back to work now that a different Zachbot had finished its assigned chore and was available to help, Zach muttered, "Sometimes it really is obvious which of you is older."

Martin smiled. "But seriously; I can help if-" An enraged yell and six more blank discs thrown had Martin fleeing too, arms over his head for shielding. "Hey! I really meant it!" the older Kratt complained just before getting through a doorway to safety. Chris was waiting on the other side. Martin rolled his eyes at him. "Why did you pick on him?"

"I guess it's sort of fun having him around," Chris admitted. "It's not as if he can throw anything hard enough to really hurt."

"No, but the Zachbots can," Martin pointed out.

Chris frowned. "Oh, yeah."

"Let's get ready. We'll probably get to our drop point soon. Australia, remember?"

"Ooh, Australia! We're parachuting this time, right?"

"Right."

* * *

 

After the drop the Kratts started searching for their next animal; the Tree Kangaroo. They had to walk a ways past the tree line in order to get far enough to find them. Unfortunately they found a different animal first. Or rather it found them.

"Hey, Martin," Chris said in an eerie calm that immediately set his brother on edge.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know if we have Death Adder antivenin in stock on the Tortuga?"

Martin instantly stopped and turned. "Yes, but tell me you don't actually need it!"

Chris was sitting on a fallen log, hand on his right knee and wincing due to the puncture wounds halfway up his calf. "Sorry, bro. Can't do that."

Martin rushed over and knelt down, wincing when he saw the bit of fluid that was very much not blood oozing out of the bite. "What happened!?"

"I must have startled it when I walked past the log," Chris explained. "It was in a pile of leaves near the base."

Martin quickly called the Tortuga on his Creature Pod, getting a little shaky when the first call was not answered. "Are you  _sure_  it was an Acanthophis?"

Chris nodded and took a deep breath. He slid off the log and lay back against it. Staying calm was vital. Neither of them touched the bite. For Australian snakes that was a bad idea.

This certainly wasn't the first bite the Kratt brothers had suffered and they knew what to do, but it was the first time help had been so far away... and unlikely to get there fast. After the drop, HQ was going to go ahead to the next town to resupply.

"Yes," Chris said firmly. "Short thick body, triangular head, small scales. It slithered off after biting me. It looked kind of disappointed. Guess I wasn't what it was looking for."

"Good, the venom progression is slow." The lighthearted attitude Chris was trying to put forth was lost on Martin, who called again and growled when the call once again went to message. Instead of the Tortuga he called Jimmy's Creature Pod and set his own down to let it ring on speaker while he took off his jacket and started cutting it into wide strips with his pocketknife. As Martin wrapped the strips around the entirety of Chris's leg Jimmy's pod rang three times before it was finally answered.

"Jimmy!" Martin said in relief.

Zach's voice answered instead, causing both brothers to look down in confusion. "No, your stupid pilot left his pod thingy in my jet. They went to go shopping or something. What is so important you had to wake me up?"

Chris groaned. "I'm doomed, aren't I?"

"No you are not, Chris. Shut up and be still," Martin ordered sharply. He grabbed the pod and stared down into Zach's surprised image gravely. "Listen very carefully, Zach. Chris has been bitten by a venomous snake and needs treatment as soon as possible. We're too far out for emergency services to get here quickly and there is antivenin on the Tortuga. I'm sending our location. I need you to bring the antivenin here  _immediately_. All of the needed equipment should be in the kit. Do you understand?"

"What!?" Zach put the pod down and started moving from his jet to the Tortuga. "This isn't my job. Shouldn't we get your friends or take him to a hospital?"

Martin grit his teeth. "YES; as soon as we can, but we have to treat the bite with the antivenin we have before that and Koki and Jimmy are too far away to wait for. YOU have to bring it. The label on the antivenin should say Acanthophis or Death Adder. If we have more than one vial bring all of them. I'll start carrying Chris that way and try to get out of the woods so you can see us better."

Zach seemed to be handling the situation well, despite the creature pod screen shaking a bit. "Okay, but send me the name in a text to make sure I get the right one. I'll be on my way with the jeep."

"Createrra," Chris corrected.

"Whatever!" he snapped and hung up.

Chris smiled. "Huh. He actually sounds worried. Weird."

Martin sent the text and put his Creature Pod back on his wrist, then knelt with his back to his brother. "Alright, Chris, let's go."

As they headed out of the forest Chris could tell Martin was tense. "When was the last time we did this?"

"Uhm... right around when you almost got eaten by a Loggerhead Shrike. But I think it was the other way around."

"Oh yeah," Chris said thoughtfully. "You know we're only half an hour from the tree line, and Zach isn't completely useless. The chances of dying from a Death Adder bite with treatment is very low and we have time. Try not to be all overprotective and stuff, ok?"

"I'll stop being overprotective when you're older than me," Martin said tightly. "And since I doubt Aviva will let you use the Time Trampoline for something so silly you're stuck."

Martin kept walking, answering when spoken to and keeping his mind on moving as far and as fast as he could without tiring out completely. He wouldn't be much help if he collapsed. When they reached the tree line and passed out into an open area Chris was feeling nauseous and dizzy, but thus far hadn't experienced any symptoms of paralysis. While this meant that he might not be  _badly_ envenomed, it still indicated that he was definitely in danger. Sometimes it took a good number of hours for paralysis to set in.

"Take a break, Martin," Chris prompted. "Zach should be on his way." Martin didn't reply and kept going doggedly forward. "Martin. Will you answer if I start calling you 'Thing One'?"

"No."

"Yeah, I thought that would work. Now stop," Chris said.

"Why?"

"Because if you don't I might puke on you."

Martin snorted. "So, business as usual then?"

Chris swallowed heavily and shuddered. "I had the flu, ok?"

Martin did stop then, looking around. He knelt and set Chris down. "Don't freak out, Chris, but I think we have a problem. I was trying to save time by going in a straight line to the Tortuga instead of taking the same path we did before."

Chris groaned gratefully for the moment of stillness and tried to settle his stomach. "What's the problem?"

"There's a cliff."

Chris opened his eyes and groaned again, trying not to get scared. "I don't think either Zach or the Createrra can climb."

Martin swore and set Chris down, looking into the distance. "It's too far on either side. We're climbing down."

"You're not the climber, you're the swimmer!" Chris protested.

"Shush and be still so I can tie you on my back."

Chris yanked on his brother's hair. "This is really dangerous!"

Martin ignored it and took the rope out of Chris's backpack. "So is letting you go much longer without treatment!"

"If you fall and we survive I get bragging rights  ** _forever_**!" the younger Kratt informed his brother petulantly.

"And if we make it you have to buy me a new jacket, since you're currently wearing mine."

"Deal."

By the time Zach arrived and hour later they were only halfway down and safe on a small ledge, but Martin was well past the ability to do much more. Chris was having trouble making his hands respond and had been told to lie still until they could continue down. He was draped over a rock and facing the shade on the inside of the cliff face since the light was making his headache terrible.

"Zach!" Martin called in relief. Toss me the antivenin!" Martin said urgently.

Zach gritted his teeth as he looked up at them from below. "What exactly makes you think I can throw that far!?"

"That statement would be  _hilarious_  if it didn't herald my doom," Chris muttered.

"Will you STOP with the upper-body-strength jokes!?" Zach shrieked furiously. "WE GET IT!"

"You have to try!" Martin insisted. "Chris needs that antivenin NOW! Paralysis is starting to set in!"

Zach did a swift burst of mental arithmetic on the distance and the fragility of the container. He didn't like the results.

"If either of us misses it'll break," Zach reasoned. "There's two vials but they're different numbers. One ends with 12 and the other 07..."

"If they both say Acanthophis either should work, now toss me the kit!" Martin demanded.

"That's not a good idea," Zach answered firmly. "You're too impulsive. It won't do Chris any good if I came all this way just to break his medicine all over a bunch of rocks!" Not that he would particularly mind being down one Kratt, he reasoned to himself, but even if it wasn't his fault the rest of the team was libel to take their grief out on  _him._

Martin glared. "Well, you're the genius. Think of something!"

Zach flinched. "Okay, okay!"

As he had left the Tortuga he had tossed the antivenin kit in the first backpack he saw, which had nothing in it; so no help there. Suddenly an idea occurred to him and he ran back to the Createrra, which had some things covered by a tarp in the back. He yanked the tarp away and grinned when he saw a Tranquilizer Gun glimmering invitingly in the harsh sun. After looking back up at the Kratt brothers on the cliff and verifying that Chris was still facing  _toward_  the cliff Zach grinned like a Cheshire cat.

He might have to save the green guy from his own idiocy but at least he got to have fun doing it. Just a few modifications and-

The little metallic clinks as Zack tinkered with the components in the tracker gun alerted the dizzy Kratt, who strained to listen through the buzz in his ears. "Now what is he doing?" Chris demanded.

Martin's eyes widened as comprehension dawned. Luckily Chris's face was still facing away from the light and he couldn't see his brother's uh-oh face. "Uh… nothing! Just stay still."

"Don't lie to me Martin!"

Deftly Zach began filling the tranquilizer cartridge with the antivenin and stuck it in the specialized pressure chamber. Mentally congratulating himself on actually being allowed to shoot a Wild Kratt, Zach took aim. Martin covered his eyes.

"I'm going to enjoy this far more than I should…" Zach mused, and fired. Chris's offended and pained shout was music to his ears and sent birds flying away from nearby trees in a panic.

Martin fought to repress a smile as he took his hand off his eyes and examined the makeshift dart protruding from the left side of his brother's backside. He failed horribly. "Looks like that worked! You're gonna' be alright, bro."

"Good, because I'm going to strangle  _both of you_  when I can feel my hands again," Chris hissed bitterly.

Zach scoffed and threw down the tranquilizer gun that he now had to revert before Aviva got back. "Fine, I'll just let you die next time!"

Martin gave Zach a grateful thumbs-up.

Zach answered with a similar gesture but used a different finger.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am well aware that snake antivenins should be administered intravenously not intramuscularly, but Aviva already did it too in 'Gila Monster Under My House'. Gila Monster venom is a neurotoxin, much weaker than but similar to that of Coral Snake venom, thus it would be treated the same way as snake venom would (if Gila Monster venom warranted it – it's very rarely fatal). But instead of an IV she gave Zach an injection, so I feel like I can get away with that sort of inaccuracy in a fanfiction based on a show where they already got it wrong in canon. Besides; the joke was just too good to miss. Chris sort of deserved it.
> 
> Also, I don't think some people realize how bad nature, and the people that love to spend lots of time in it, can smell. Can anyone imagine what Aviva must have smelled like after hibernating all winter, in a hole in the ground, burning off "energy" (fat) stored in her groundhog suit? What about Chris and Martin after they get back from the desert after sweating, carrying around a koala, and running from coyotes non-stop for two days? I'm sure everyone remembers the Skunk episode. They spent an awful lot of time around decaying carcasses and fetid food in 'Tazzy Chris', too.
> 
> Yeah. The Tortuga better have a good bathroom to wash all that wonderful nature off.
> 
> The DNA explanation on Day 6 is inspired by Terry Pratchett's 'The Science of Discworld'.


	3. Button, Button, Who's got the Button?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picnic Under the Stars, Squirrel Trouble, Unintentional Bonding while Fixing Stuff,

**Chapter 3: Button, Button Who's got the button?**

* * *

 

 

**Week 2**

 

"It usually takes two people a little while to learn where the funny buttons are and testy buttons are." Matt Lauer

* * *

 

**Day 8**

"Are you back  _already_?" Zach asked, making a show of being blatantly disappointed. He had been lounging around the Tortuga all morning secure in the knowledge that not only did the Kratts Team owed him BIG TIME but there would also be nothing urgent to occupy his brilliant mind besides designing Varmitech Industries' next catalog. Of course, he turned out to be wrong by ten when the Bros came back from the hospital irritatingly soon. "One would think they would keep someone that's been poisoned by something that actually has the word 'Death' in its name at the hospital longer than one night."

"Venoms and poisons are completely different things, Zach," Martin corrected. "And the word 'death' used to be 'deaf' and just changed over time… presumably because it sounded cooler."

Zach raised a brow. "Why would anyone name a snake the 'Deaf Adder'? That makes it sound like a somewhat pathetic snake."

Martin shrugged. Chris made his way over to a chair with Martin's entirely unnecessary help and sat down, looking tired but composed. The moment Zach turned back to his laptop he mimed aiming at the back of the tech mogul's head with a slingshot and fired several times.

Koki brought Chris one of Jimmy's cookies and punched him gently on the shoulder. She then went to her station to look it up and raised a brow. "It's because most snakes flee from human activity, but since Death Adders are ambush predators their instinct is to stay put, leading to the very incorrect belief that it couldn't hear."

Zach scoffed, unaware of the number of imaginary pellets hitting him. "I don't normally deal with these things, so why would I need to know that?"

Koki sighed and brought Martin some coffee. It looked like he needed it. No doubt he had been up most of the night while Chris was still in the danger zone. "Hopefully you won't have to know this stuff, but it's a good idea anyway when you're working with us. Obviously the issue of knowing the hunting strategies and dangers of animals comes up from time to time." She gestured to the Kratts, who made very different but similarly hilarious faces at her in retaliation. "Make it a part of your to-do list to look up venoms at least. It's really not that complex and knowing your way around the First-Aid kits is never a bad idea."

Zach snorted. "It should have been stated in that contract that I'd have to shuttle miscellaneous fluids through nature to prevent Kratt expiration. I ordered more of that antivenin, by the way. Now you can't accuse me of not replacing it."

Both Chris and Martin gave him surprised looks. Koki stared. "You used it for a legitimate reason – you probably saved Chris's life – and you think we'd blame you for using it?" she asked.

"If I didn't replace it and you needed it again? Yes," he said simply. Jimmy offered Zach his plate of cookies as he passed by, but Zach waved him off. "Aviva takes care of Inventory, too, so it's my job anyway."

Jimmy put the cookies in the microwave and turned back to the Teleporter. "Now that we know we can send people through here, maybe we should ask Aviva to make a bigger version? It'd save a lot of time on grocery trips!"

"I do  **not**  advise doing that," Zach drawled. "The fact that I survived does not mean it will happen again, or that the Teleporter is a toy." He looked scornfully at Jimmy's controller. "Even if you use that controller instead of the console like any normal person would."

"I'm a normal person!" Jimmy defended.

Zach crossed his arms. "Besides the fact that you're able to sleep in the strangest places I've ever seen and your sense of hearing seems to completely shut down while you do, I also think there might be a singularity in your stomach. The sheer amount of calories you consume a day with neither weight gain nor apparent illness suggests it just disappears. That's  _not normal_."

Martin raised a brow. "Singularity?"

"Black Hole," Chris clarified.

"Oh," Jimmy shrugged. "I thought he was insulting me for a second."

Zach stared after him in amazement as Jimmy happily went back to the cockpit. He looked to Koki with concern and motioned after him urgently in a clear, 'what's wrong with him?' manner.

"We know," she said empathetically. "Just don't think about it too much. And I agree with you. No more people in the Teleporter."

"Thank you," Zach said blandly, and turned back to his laptop. He completely missed the interesting looks he got for saying 'thank you', as if the Kratts legitimately believed that phrase wasn't in his vocabulary. "It's good to know I'm finally being listened to considering I'm actually the inventor here for the time being. Now if only I could get you guys to stop following me like I'm a kleptomaniac this job might be more bearable."

As he worked he included two preliminary animal-themed machines he had concocted the previous night that didn't actually use any animals. It would have to do for a trial-run. Aviva would surely be browsing his online catalog, but the ones he sent to his regular customers on paper would give him a good idea of possible sales rates without alerting her to his doing it.

He would have to skip it in Donita's copy, though. She was laughing at him enough already.

Chris's eyes narrowed in clear offense once the last statement finally registered. "After all the things you've stolen from us you actually have the  _nerve_  to suggest you won't steal anything while you're working here?"

"That's right, Wild Rats. If I break the contract I won't get paid – and seeing the looks on your faces when you have to write out all those zeroes on my check will be worth more than anything I could steal from you," Zach said in a terrifyingly cheerful manner.

Martin's eyes widened. "How many zeroes exactly?"

"I offered a formal review of the contract, remember?" Zach sing-songed while ticking his finger at them chidingly. "But your rainbow-bug-thingies were  _so important_ you didn't want to wait. And the best part is I didn't even have to change anything! When this is over with you'll owe me  ** _easily three times_**  what you currently pay Aviva! Maybe  ** _four_** , considering there are 'reasonable work hour' clauses and you've had me working all night repairing things, and I bet it'll happen again. Aviva doesn't claim that time, does she? I will."

Martin face-palmed so hard it echoed through the Tortuga and Chris mimed strangling Zach with a furious scowl.

Undaunted, he continued. "Do you have any earthly idea what Inventors capable of making teleporters, invisibility fabric, DNA-altering-power-suits, mind-control devices, robotic labor forces, and time machines are actually worth!? Most COUNTRIES wouldn't be able to afford either of us if we charged what we really deserve. The difference here is that I have to accept abysmally small rates to make anything affordable enough to be competitive and pull profit, and Aviva loves all the varmints you guys research so much she  _deliberately low-balled her salary_  just so you guys could afford her. She's not even collecting what her own contract warrants."

" _Dang_. I need to review my contract," Jimmy mumbled.

"Jimmy Z! Not you too," Martin whined.

Jimmy laughed. "I was kidding!"

Chris and Martin let out relieved sighs.

"…mostly."

Zach got in one last shot before he pushed the button to send out his catalog. "Not that I'm hoping for it or anything, but you had better keep me safe too. Compensation for work-related injuries is included, due immediately. That ought to make you think twice before you decide to play  **Zach-ball** ," he teased maliciously.

"Anything else you want to torture us with?" Koki demanded hotly.

Zach grinned. "Yes. With her talents Aviva would make a MARVELOUS Super-Villain. Try not to really tick her off." He paused. "Actually: please do. I'm interested in witnessing the fallout. …from a distance."

Martin scowled. "Is there a reason you're being so unpleasant today?"

"I'm in a good mood," he shrugged. "This is me enjoying myself."

"Then try enjoying yourself in a way that  _doesn't_ make me curious how much hurting you will actually cost," Chris seethed. "I'm beginning to think it might be worth it."

Zach raised a mocking brow, but the familiar nervousness was definitely present in his posture as he went back to his work in silence. Still, it was clear he had won that round.

Koki brought Chris a magazine and sat down at her station. "I guess missions are on hold for a few days until Chris is completely recovered?"

The Kratt brothers agreed.

**Day 9**

It was quiet at Tortuga HQ aside from the ticking of Zach Varmitech's typing as he worked. Few lights were on and a good amount of nighttime light came through the sunroof due to the big moon which was close to full, though Zach hardly paid attention to the sky anyway; if he did he would have noticed the big square dark patch on the sun roof. He was alone and doing his work without interruption or company; the Kratts seemed to have taken his word for it when he said he wanted their money more than their stuff and Zach wasn't sure if he should be relieved or annoyed about that.

The Kratts had spent all day flying to what they called 'a prime location' for whatever they were preparing for later that night despite having clearly said they were giving Chris time to get better before doing anything creaturely. Most of the team had spent a good deal of the day alternately napping and getting things ready for what he assumed was a nighttime picnic, which conveniently gave Chris plenty of time to rest and recover from the lingering after-effects of his snake bite. Zach had no idea why they would even want to have a picnic this late, but the Wild Kratts never made much sense to him regardless and he had not been concerned enough to ask.

It was about mid-august and Zach very much lamented that it was so hot since he never wore anything but black. He had relented and taken off his signature turtleneck but still had a long-sleeved black shirt on, if only a normal cotton one. It wasn't as if he had to dress particularly classy to work with these outdoorsy people. It had been a languid, slow day, for which Zach was thankful after the hectic week before.

Around noon Jimmy had suggested Zach take a nap. Why that had been presented at all was a mystery to him but Zach wasn't about to argue it. They hadn't even woken him until three for an early dinner, which he also didn't question because he was still too drowsy to care. Currently he was pleasantly relaxed and winding down from the day without actually being tired. There was only so late he was willing to work, though, and 11 pm was plenty.

Zach shut Aviva's station down, closed his laptop, stood and stretched. He reached out and flipped the light switch off, as the last person to leave was obligated to do, and the room went black. For a moment Zach waited for his eyes to adjust before moving – the switch was near the entry to the passage downstairs, which was a logical placement unless you didn't plan to sleep in the actual Tortuga and had to go across the room to the exit.

Martin, who had been outside for a while already and had eyes pre-adjusted to the dark, appeared out of the shadows like freaking Dracula and scooped Zach up over his shoulder.

After the initial startled shriek Zach gave up and went limp once he realized who it was. "Martin! What are you doing?" he asked blankly, too fed-up to really struggle.

"Kidnapping you," Martin answered calmly.

"Why? Where are you taking me?"

"To the roof of the Tortuga."

Zach groaned. "Did you break a window or something?"

Martin laughed. "No, we're having a star-gazing picnic."

"I don't want to go to your stupid picnic!" Zach whined, pulling Martin's hair to no effect.

"Hence the kidnapping," Martin smiled, and made his way to the uppermost level and to the largest window, which functioned as a hatchway to climb up on the roof when the deck wasn't extended.

Chris and Jimmy reached out and helped Zach climb up, which he allowed since he obviously wasn't being given a choice. Now the nap made a lot more sense. Martin came up next and shut the screen behind him to keep the most annoying insects out.

Zach sighed and sat down on the blanket they had placed, which had a gripping surface on the bottom to keep it steady on the glass and made Zach less nervous about being up there. He knew the glass was plenty strong to hold them with no problem, it was just seeing the floor so far below him that made him anxious.

Everyone else was wearing shorts and short sleeves due to the weather; even the Kratt brothers had their trademark color-coded jackets tied around their waists instead of wearing them. Zach pulled at his collar uncomfortably. He might have been able to handle the ninety degree temperatures if it wasn't so humid too. He felt like he was trying to breathe steam.

After spending his trip up here in near complete darkness because his eyes hadn't adjusted the big, bright moon was an unusual but welcome sight to him. There were no cities around and he could only see the faintest glimmer of a small town in the far horizon. Aside from the sounds of the insects and occasional animal call it was also very quiet. Apparently the Kratts didn't believe in music at their parties.

"What are we doing this for?" Zach asked petulantly. "You just had to pick the ickiest night in August to spend time outside?"

"We didn't pick the weather, Zach, or the date," Koki said sensibly. "And it sort of sucks because the moon is so bright. We've just got to make due or we'll miss it."

Zach raised a brow. "Miss what?"

Chris smiled and held out a plate Jimmy had brought up with chocolate cupcakes covered in star-shaped sprinkles. "The perseid meteor shower. Tonight is the peak. We've seen a bunch already, but Koki insisted we didn't interrupt you while you were working."

Zach took one of the cupcakes and looked up and stared for only a few irritated seconds. "I don't see anything."

Jimmy tapped his shoulder and pointed halfway up the sky. "Look there. Give your eyes a while to adjust and the meteors will start to show up. The moon makes it hard to see the fainter ones, but we're far enough away from the city that the brighter lights are still visible."

"Just be  _patient,_ " Koki said serenely. She stretched and lay back on the blanket, staring out where Jimmy had pointed. "They happen pretty randomly, but you can generally see one or two every few minutes."

Zach sighed and took a bite. He almost winced at how sweet it was – Jimmy had apparently done the frosting homemade instead of buying the less intense pre-mixed containers from a store and the powdered sugar made his teeth hurt for a moment before he got used to it. Resigned to a boring evening, Zach reached into his pocket and pushed a button to summon a Zachbot. It arrived quickly and both of its arms retreated inside its body only for a different set with fans attached to appear instead.

Rather than complaining about the slight whirring noise Jimmy and Koki moved closer to Zach, much to his annoyance, to share his artificial breeze.

"This is boring," he said less than thirty seconds later.

Koki elbowed him in the side lightly. "Shush. Just wait. Haven't you ever seen a meteor shower before?"

"No," he answered shortly, taking another bite.

Matin chuckled. "I figured it'd be a good idea to bring you, since I was talking to Aviva about it earlier. She's sad to miss it, but she did tell me you missed the one you were supposed to see at camp because you were sick that week."

"Yes," Zach drawled. "Sick of nature. I was hiding in the computer lab-"

Just then two bright streaks of light flew across the sky and Zach stopped like someone had hit his off switch. The Zachbot's head moved to exactly the same direction and its eyes blinked out for a moment before going very still. Though the fans continued going, the Zachbot never removed its gaze from where its master stared.

The others had been there a while and ran out of snacks, so they left Zach and Jimmy there while they went to get more. They paused at the hatchway to smile at Zach, who hadn't budged. He was completely transfixed, waiting patiently for the next fleeting light.

"Do you see that?" Koki asked fondly. "It's like he's never seen the sky before."

Martin smiled. "Yeah. I guess he can be interested in nature, but given his personality we really should have guessed that his specific area of interest would have nothing to do with animals or the environment."

"What is that Zachbot doing?" Chris pointed out the bot behind Zach.

"It's probably recording the show," Koki said calmly.

"I was just wondering if it was… paying attention," Chris said slowly, "Because I didn't see Zach give it a command. We've smashed a lot of those things and I'd feel bad if they were… you know… alive somehow."

Martin yawned. "It's probably programmed to react to Zach's body language or something. When he jumps like a startled cat they catch him without a command, don't they? I bet its recording the meteor shower because Zach is paying so much attention to it. He said they're designed to analyze and record their surroundings."

Chris looked at the ground for a while. "I never really thought about it, but what if the Zachbots aren't capable of very much critical thinking because Zach deliberately makes them that way?"

Martin looked over in confusion. "Huh?"

"Oh, I see what you're saying," Koki said. "You mean that he doesn't want them able to think for themselves, because then they'd be able to do things independently of him, like people do, and make their own decisions"

Martin looked back up at the sky and frowned. "That sounds dangerous," he said after a while.

Koki looked back at Zach and saw his green eyes widen in wonder as another streak of celestial light graced the shimmering sky. "I haven't known Zach as long as you guys or Aviva, but I've got to admit that none of you seem to give him enough credit. Yeah, he's scrawny and whiny and has a startle reflex on par with the average bunny and all that stuff, but he's also very intelligent. Despite being the equivalent of red shirts on the Enterprise there may be a very good reason those Zachbots don't seem very effective in fights, and it's not because his design is wrong. It's probably the best evidence that his design is exactly right. I mean… have you ever seen those things do something creative without Zach shouting the order? If those things were able to take down the Wild Kratts very easily and make their own decisions then what chance would Zach have if they went AWOL?"

Chris grabbed another cupcake, licking the frosting off his fingers thoughtfully. "Zach is very likely a lot smarter than we thought if he's deliberately programming inept, disposable minions as a safety feature. I gotta admit having a large number of dumb but loyal minions is a better idea than having a few, smart ones."

Martin sighed worriedly. "And that sounds dangerous too."

Zach heard none of this. He was watching the lights and paying no attention to the Wild Kratts.

…this turned out to be a mistake. Things changed as midnight passed and the sugar from Jimmy's confections hit their brains.

**Day 10**

Martin and Chris decided to be squirrels just after midnight, which only made their already childish mindset infinitely worse. They spent most of the impending morning playing in the trees and alternately watching the lights, but the previous option became far more appealing the lighter the sky became. As a result of their playful scuffling in the branches they fell out of a tree, landed on a Buzz Bike, accidentally triggered the controls, and went speeding off into another tree.

Thankfully neither brother was hurt.

Unfortunately the tree they hit was and it fell onto the other three Buzz Bikes with positively karmic precision, smashing the front of each one because they had been parked in a straight line.

After the initial hissy-fit and subsequent squirrel hunt Zach and Koki could only resign themselves to spending the entire day putting the bikes back together while the guilty Kratt brothers sheepishly hid in the canopy. They worked quietly for the most part, as usual, and only communicated when they needed assistance or tools that the other person had.

Jimmy assisted by bringing them breakfast and a steady supply of caffeine. Around eleven he brought the two another round of coffee while they started working on the second bike. Koki's was the first one they fixed and it was parked in now perfect condition next to the Tortuga, waiting for its siblings. Zach chose Chris's bike next and called a Zachbot to tear off the mangled plating and expose the bits inside.

Jimmy sat down and bit into a sandwich, looking up into the trees. "Do you think they'll ever come down?" he asked after swallowing.

"Not until Zach puts the tranquilizer gun back," Koki said with a smirk. "Chris won't, at least."

Zach, who had the gun strapped to his leg and was now known to be a surprisingly good shot when he wanted to be, snorted and tossed an unsalvageable bit of casing behind him. "Not happening. I'll pay to replace it, but I am keeping this thing. Once I get back home it's going in my trophy case."

"Is it loaded?" Jimmy inquired nervously.

"Not with darts," Zach smirked.

Koki grinned. "He tweaked it to fire paint balls."

Jimmy snickered. "Where did you get paint balls?"

"Martin's compartment," Zach said simply.

"HEY! THOSE ARE MINE!" Martin yelled from the tree line, his voice small and distant.

Chris's voice chimed in just after. "YEAH! THAT'S STEALING!"

"I PLAN TO  _GIVE THEM BACK_ , WILD RATS!" Zach turned and fired four times into the trees where he had heard the voices. A couple short yells indicated that Zach had missed since they had wisely scarpered after speaking, but the slight shuffle of leaves indicated both squirrels had retreated deeper into the woods.

The three listened to the silence for a moment before Koki shrugged and went back to work. "We'll call that borrowing if you replace them."

"Hey. Why are you being so nice to me?" Zach asked suspiciously.

She sighed and pried out an engine component with a wrench because it had been smashed beyond the ability to remove it normally, then threw it in the direction of Zach's discard pile. "Because you've actually been very helpful, Zach. I sort of expected you to go all Dr. Robotnik on us long before now and you haven't. Even if you're just behaving to legally sucker-punch the Bro's bank account you've still surprised me."

Zach lifted a brow at her. "Dr. Robotnik?"

She smiled, giving Jimmy a wry look. "Nevermind. You know, it's also nice to have help repairing all this stuff that doesn't continually babble on about her next invention or chant 'drill… drill…' as if saying that will make it magically appear. I mean, Aviva's my friend and I adore her but the constant prattle while I'm trying to concentrate gets old  _real fast_."

This took Zach completely off-guard and he laughed. For once he was neither giggling maliciously nor cackling madly; it was an honest laugh. Before he could stop himself he was suddenly having a companionable conversation with a Wild Kratt.

"I know!" he said pleasantly. "She used to do that to me, too! It drove me  _crazy_! It's like she's narrating her life to some alien mother ship so they can make a documentary on the Scavenging Habits of the Earthbound Human." He reached toward the toolbox and began to mimic Aviva expertly; muttering, picking up needed things, and instantly losing track of them as he found too many things to hold at once. " _'OK – I need a ratchet… now where are the bolts? I should order more washers; these are almost out. Bolts, bolts, bol- no, those are the wrong size. Oh, here they are! Now I need a three quarter socket. What happened to the-? I just had it! Ratchet… ratchet…'_   **Who is she talking to!?** "

Jimmy fell back onto the grass and spat bits of his sandwich out as he howled with laughter. Back on the ground Koki covered her mouth and tears welled up as she shook with silent mirth. She was trying not to laugh, really, but it was unavoidable. Zach joined in helplessly. The light, happy sounds issuing from him were so at odds with how he normally behaved that Martin and Chris leapt back to investigate and gaped from the branches, sharing a look of confusion.

"Do the Buzz Bikes use Nitrous Oxide for anything?" Chris asked.

"I don't… think so," Martin replied. "I wonder what happened."

Chris shrugged as well as he could while gripping bark with his claws. "Whatever. Let's go find a hiding place before Zach remembers he's mad at us."

Once Koki recovered, which took a good while, she wiped her eyes then wagged a finger at him accusingly. "That was mean," she informed him, but appreciatively.

Just as quickly as it had come the friendly moment was gone. Zach startled back to the reality of working with his rivals. "So?" he challenged awkwardly. "It's not  _my fault_  if Aviva's weird."

Koki 'humph'ed and crossed her arms. "Obviously you did, but when did you work with her anyway?"

Jimmy rolled his eyes. It looked like they were about to start fighting again and he was very, very tired of listening to it. He went back to the Tortuga to see about lunch. Maybe they'd be less cranky after they ate. There wasn't much else for him to do with the Zachbots cleaning everything due to their germaphobic creator and no reason to pilot.

Zach picked up the ratchet and started working again. "If you must know, we kept getting paired for group projects at science camp because none of the other kids could keep up with us. Believe it or not I was the inspiration for her animal-themed designs," he said proudly, puffing out his chest as best he could, which wasn't much. "It was a compromise; I didn't use any actual animals when I worked with her, since it made her screechy, and in return we worked on things that would mimic the skill I wanted from the animal to begin with. Before working with me Aviva only made normal, straight-laced, boring stuff like engines, hover-cars, and little molecular models made of colored beads. To be honest her best subject was Chemistry."

"Yeah," Koki said thoughtfully. "She's made a neutralizer for toxic waste, Gila monster antivenin, and spider silk. I never really thought about it, but those are blatant chemistry skills and very much NOT mechanical. It doesn't make sense for an inventor known for her machines to be so versed in chemicals and how they interact without studying that separately."

"See? If it weren't for me you Wild Ratts might not have your precious Creature Power Suits at all," Zach bragged. "I got her all interested in the animal powers I wanted for my inventions, and since she hated using the actual animals she invented something to turn willing guinea pigs into those animals so she could study  _them_ instead."

"I bet that compromise didn't last long, huh?" Koki asked in challenge, neatly avoiding commenting that Zach might be right. "How long did your friendship last before you messed it up?"

"I didn't mess it up, she did by overreacting!" he snapped icily. "I wasn't even working with her on that invention so I wasn't breaking the compromise because Aviva  _wasn't involved_. She didn't have to get mad about it! How is it in any way my fault she didn't understand the boundaries of our deal?"

"Maybe she thought you understood that hurting the animals  _at all_  was what upset her, not whether or not she actually  _saw_  you doing it," Koki suggested blithely. Zach didn't answer and just kept working, clearly trying to ignore her now. She sighed and calmed her ire after seeing his stricken expression. He must have had no idea it was there or he wouldn't have let her see it. "You know," she said gently, "you've got a good chance to fix that, uh…  _misunderstanding_  now. You did agree to help us when you really didn't have to. There's always a chance you could make friends again."

"I didn't say I wanted to," Zach snapped.

Koki just smiled. "You didn't say you didn't want to either."

Zack turned his back on her with cold finality. "Just do your job, Wild Rat, and I'll do mine."

They went back to working in silence after that, on different bikes to avoid further conversation. Koki knew better than to push her luck and Zach was trying very hard to ignore he'd had the entire conversation. Laughing like THAT didn't suit him, if only because it happened so rarely.

Martin and Chris didn't leave the woods until Zach had gone to bed and Jimmy had helpfully retrieved the tranquilizer/paintball gun and hid it in the cargo hold next to the giant blue spider.

**Day 11**

Zach tapped Koki on the shoulder, not wanting to shout over her headphones since he could hear the beats several steps away from her. She pulled one side back off her ear, sending angry opera tumbling out into the air behind her, and gave him a questioning look.

"Do you know where Aviva keeps the backup files?" he asked. "I can't find them."

Koki's eyes widened and she looked back at Martin, who had heard Zach and balked. "Um… I know the financial things and inventory is backed up. I'm not sure about anything else."

Zach rolled his eyes. "I saw those already, I meant the backup files for her  _Inventions_ ; scans of the plans, material alternatives and densities, electrical layouts and instruction manuals… that stuff. Where is it?"

Koki hesitated. "Um…"

"She still hasn't made those yet!?" Martin demanded, rubbing his neck with a pained look.

Zach looked between them, to the now immaculately organized piles of rolled-up plans that had been  _just everywhere_  before a Zachbot stacked them properly, then to Aviva's station. As he did this his expression became increasingly frantic. "Do NOT tell me she's still as disorganized as she was at twelve," he almost pleaded. "Everyone keeps backup files. What if something happens to the paper copies or the Inventions get destroyed?"

"You spend the rest of your life as a very depressed Giraffe," Martin drawled.

Zach hadn't registered that statement because he was in too much shock. He ran an Industry, for pity's sake, even if most of the actual work took place well below him and was done by those he had delegated the tasks to. But he made sure those tasks were DONE, he CHECKED, he ORGANIZED, and this level of sheer bull-headed negligence made his Inner Boss howl incoherent rage to the sky. For an instant it honestly looked like Zach was about to cry. Then he growled and snatched the plans as if they were actively trying to escape.

"It may not be in the contract, but this is  ** _stupid_** ," he spat. "I'm scanning these and  _everything else I can find_  into a backup database."

Martin rushed over and hugged him. "Thank you!"

"Eaugh!" Zach flailed and got loose, shuddering after Martin backed off. "Don't do that again, Blue Boy." He then stalked over to a panel in the wall that slid open easily. Apparently nobody else knew that panel was there, but printer/scanners that handled blueprints were big things and couldn't exactly be left out in the open without impeding walking paths, which was where Aviva apparently preferred to leave her actual plans instead. "I  _thought_  those computer files transferred too quickly when those little stinkers chased you guys out. Obviously it's because only about one quarter of what  _should_  be in the computer actually  _is_."

Koki hummed in thought. "Should we be letting him mess with Aviva's files like that?"

Martin pointed a finger at her ominously. "You hush. This is a GREAT idea."

Chris rubbed the back of his neck sympathetically, clearly on Martin's side, but was dubious. "I don't know. She might get mad."

"Martin can handle that. We'll call this his idea," Zach said dismissively. "Aviva won't stay too mad at him for long anyway."

Chris lifted a brow. "I don't know. Martin and I may outrank her, but these are her inventions. It seems like an invasion of her privacy."

And it suddenly hit Zach that Chris had  **no idea**  Martin was invading Aviva's privacy, if not Aviva, quite frequently. He turned to look at the younger Kratt in surprise on reflex only to see Martin, who was luckily standing behind the others, making rather frantic motions to discourage any further comment on the matter. It legitimately surprised Zach that Chris didn't know. He could understand not telling Koki and Jimmy, but  _Chris_? He thought the Kratt brothers shared everything.

Surprising even himself, Zach chose to keep the secret (if only for good dirt on Martin and Aviva for later) and drew all ire in the conversation toward himself as a distraction.

He snorted derisively and started scanning anyway, turning his back on them. "Obviously none of you would survive for more than five minutes running an  _actual business_  instead of driving a giant turtle around nature to play with fuzzy balls of teeth and mindless instinct. Is that why you work so far away from the city?"

Koki and Chris immediately went on the offensive and entirely missed Martin's look of surprise.

"Oh, that's gotta be the most offensive thing-" Chris seethed.

"No, it would be more offensive to compare your precious critters to humans," Zach said smugly. "Camouflage? LYING. Scavenging? STEALING. Don't even get me started on pack behavior. If I ran my business like a Wolf Pack I'd get flayed alive on the international news." He mimed to a Zachbot, which followed his commands immediately. "Okay, Mr. Secretary. I need to reinforce my place as Alpha. Now SIT. Roll over.  _Good boy!_ "

Martin face palmed and groaned. Chris backed away from Koki as if he expected her to spontaneously burst into flames and ducked behind Martin.

Koki almost seemed to. For a very long moment she stood very still, then she just turned and walked out of the Tortuga. On her way out she grabbed an aluminum bat that was leaning against her station and sent a Zachbot head flying in sans torso just after she was out of sight.

"Hey!" Zach complained, but didn't pursue the matter further.

Martin and Chris waited for the sound of more brutalized automatons and only relaxed a little when none came.

Chris glared. "Okay, that was  **way**  out of line. Though I guess it was only a matter of time before you managed to completely infuriate one of us."

Martin shook his head and punched Zach's shoulder hard enough to make him drop what he was holding. "Animals don't lie, Zach."

Zach turned and rubbed his shoulder. "Batesian mimicry," he said flatly. "From your own files – 'a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a common predator.' I got that when I looked up venoms like Koki told me to. The Mexican Milk Snake looks almost exactly like the Coral Snake in order to broadcast the false signal 'I am venomous'. That is  _clearly_  lying. Animals might not be as good at it as humans are, but they still definitely do it."

Chris and Martin looked like they wanted to argue that, but Chris sighed and muttered, "She'll get you for that secretary comment later."

Zach lifted a brow. "Why? I didn't mean it as a girl thing. I even said 'Mr. Secretary' to avoid that!"

"Oohhh… he doesn't know!" Martin winced.

"Know what?" Zach demanded, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Uh…" Chris started hesitantly, "Koki keeps getting treated like our secretary whenever we do public events or presentations because she's not one of the three most prominent members of the team-"

"Being the Kratt Brothers and the Inventor," Martin clarified.

Chris continued. "Or someone with a really obvious job, like Pilot."

Zach rolled his eyes. "That makes no sense. She's the computer expert, communications specialist, mechanic…"

"Yeah, but people don't seem to get that. They keep giving her invoices for our spending when Aviva is the one who asked for them, calling her number and creature pod as if it were the main line for the whole Tortuga, begging her to get our autographs-" Chris listed.

"-and rarely ask for hers-" Martin added.

"-and sending fan messages to her e-mail addressed for  _everyone else_. So you just pushed a BIG button."

Zach visibly deflated. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

 ** _"We shall bury him with honor,"_**  Jimmy said deeply and solemnly with a fist over his heart.

Chris smirked. "That was  _awesome_. What game have you been playing?"

" _Shut up_ ," Zach snapped tiredly, rubbing his temples with both hands.


	4. Resistance is Futile

**Chapter 4: Resistance is Futile**

 

* * *

 

"A person's abilities are tested best when defending rather than attacking." ~Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata, Animal Crossing: Wild World

* * *

 

**WEEK 2 - Continued**

**Day 12**

Zach tried working that morning, but didn't succeed very well since everyone was hurrying around behind him setting up for a childishly colorful party. He managed to get some things done, though, including discovering and compensating for the sudden accounting nightmare caused by the midnight purchase of all the party supplies and snacks the he hadn't been warned about. Why anyone at Jimmy's age still needed a 'surprise' party was beyond Zach's understanding, especially since the same 'surprise' occurred every year. As he put the finishing touches on the invoices, which finally got the spending balanced, he got a very rude interruption in the form of someone tickling their fingers up his neck to the back of his head.

The thought of 'SPIDER!' made him shriek, leap out of his chair, and scrabble at the back of his head to get it off… only to find nothing there. Once Zach caught his breath and consciously accepted there was no spider on him he turned to glare at the offending arachnid-faker. "What was that for!?" he demanded.

"I bet you didn't get Jimmy a present, did you?" Koki asked with her arms crossed disapprovingly.

Zach crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. "One: I don't care about your birthdays! One. A: considering nobody  _told me_  it was his birthday you have no right to complain! Two:  _Don't touch me!_ "

"Please," Chris rolled his eyes and continued hanging the banner onto the catwalk railing, which spanned the entire room. "Don't you do basic background checks on all your 'enemies'?"

Zach snorted. "Yes, but those generally concern things more interesting than birthdays; like criminal records or degrees which have nothing to do with someone's actual career."

"That is a gross invasion of privacy," Martin snapped, who was one of the 'criminal records' group, albeit for bogus things associated with protesting deforestation in Africa. He inflated another balloon from the helium tank and let it float up to the skylight.

Zach lifted a brow at them, then gave them a cheerful smile and said, " _Bad guy!_  Remember? Everything my Intel gathered was public knowledge anyway; I just had it all put in one place."

Martin frowned. "Who has the weird degree?"

"Can't you guess?" Koki asked wryly. "Jimmy's got a Culinary Arts degree."

Chris lifted a brow. "Is that why everything he makes tastes better than anything we do? Even his  **coffee**  is better and he just puts it in the filter like everyone else!"

Koki smiled. "He puts cinnamon and nutmeg in the grounds."

Martin blinked. "Really? What about the frozen pizzas?"

"Drizzle olive oil on top and add a little Italian seasoning before you bake it," she answered casually. "Pay more attention next time he cooks and you'll see him do all kinds of neat stuff."

Martin hazarded another item Jimmy was notorious for, but did so in a high-pitched voice because he had just inhaled one of his balloons,  _"_ **Spaghetti sauce?"**

"He makes that from scratch," Chris said, snickering. Koki laughed and gave Martin a smile while she poured bags of chips into bowls. "Big batches. Then he puts it in the freezer for later."

 **"I wonder if those brownies are really his Grandma's recipe and not his?"** Martin squeaked loudly.

Zach rolled his eyes and shooed Martin away from the helium tank to stop the inhalation before Martin either passed out or managed to make Zach laugh. "We have established that Jimmy can cook. Where is he anyway?"

 **"He went to-"**  Martin began, but Zach smacked a hand over his mouth to stop him.

"You," Zach snapped, pointing to Chris.

"He went to the arcade in town with the token card Aviva got him," Chris answered. "It won't take him long to spend it all, though, so we'd better hurry. Hey, Koki, is the punch mixed yet?"

Koki winced. "Not yet. I was busy icing the cake."

Martin took Zach's wrist and moved his hand away. Thankfully his voice was mostly normal again. "I'll get it, Chris. Zach can you finish filling the balloons, please?'

"Why should I? This has nothing to do with  **work** ," Zach complained.

"Because I said 'please'," Martin said cheerfully, leaving Zach spluttering as he left to make the punch.

Zach sighed in annoyance and picked only the red balloons to fill since they hadn't bought any black ones. Not long after that he got his finger stuck while trying to tie the ends off and managed to accidentally pop the balloon trying to get free, which made him jump high enough to justify a Zachbot rescue before he hit the floor. "AGH! Forget it," he griped and started to motion for his Zachbot to do it after he had been put back on his feet.

"Wait, haven't you ever tied balloons before?" Chris asked. After he had the last banner secured he jumped down from the catwalk and rolled in a way that made it obvious he did that a lot instead of taking the stairs. Zack stared, a little impressed with the feat, before crossing his arms. "No. My Zachbots inflate them when I need balloons for anything, and they're always black ones, too. Why does a grown man need all these childish colors anyway? It's stupid."

Chris put out a hand to stop the robot, which surprisingly paused in reaction.

"Hey! Don't listen to  _him_!" Zach snapped to it.

"Look," Chris said and took a balloon to fill it. "You rely on the Zachbots too much already. And on the colors thing: it's just what Jimmy likes. There's nothing childish or stupid about accepting who you are and not caring what anyone else thinks about it. What IS childish and stupid is a grown man that doesn't know how to tie a balloon by himself."

Zach visibly twitched and started to turn red at the insult. "So sorry for trying to help!" he snapped and turned away.

Before he could storm off, though, Chris grabbed his wrist and handed him the end of the balloon. Rather than let go he held it there. "First make sure you don't overfill it or there won't be enough room left at the end to tie it off-"

"Uh, what are you doing?" Zach asked, trying to pull his hand back.

"Showing you how to do this, now pay attention. Didn't your parents ever show you how to do this for parties?" Chris asked.

"No, they always hired someone to decorate. I doubt they knew how to do it either," Zach admitted.

Chris didn't comment on that, he just nodded. "Before you try to tie the end off you should stretch it a few times to loosen the material," he said, doing just that.

Zach gave up with an irritated sigh and held his end tightly so Chris could pull the other end. "Fine, then you just loop it. I can tie a knot."

Chris shook his head. "No, that's how you got your finger stuck. Loop the stretched material over _two_  fingers with a space between to push the end through like this." He demonstrated by using Zach's fingers and not his own, for which Zach was grateful for the excuse that Chris's insult had made him red from anger before this new embarrassed flush could show up. "Then you don't pull it tight until just after you slide your fingers out."

The instant it was done Zach yanked his hand away like he'd been stung. Chris continued regardless. "If you're going to put strings on them the best way is to push that through with the end of the balloon for a more secure connection, that way it's less likely that they'll escape and float away."

"Why is that so important?" Zach asked.

"Because the air currents carry the balloons out to the ocean, where they fall into the water once the helium leaks out. Sea turtles eat the balloons, thinking they're jellyfish," Chris explained. "The turtles can choke on them or they can get stuck in the turtle's throat and prevent them from eating properly. The strings can tangle up birds and other marine life, too. So even though the balloons and strings we use at the Tortuga are biodegradable, keeping them from escaping is an important habit to get into for the environment. Certain places don't recognize any balloons as biodegradable and releases are illegal no matter what."

"Oh…." Zach muttered wretchedly. "I didn't know that."

"I know," Chris drawled. "I turned you in for it."

Just then Zach vaguely recalled being furious after having to pay a hefty fine incurred during a Varmitech Industries-sponsored event in Florida last year. There had been a letter explaining why he was being fined, but couldn't be bothered to read through it and had simply handed it over to his legal department to have it taken care of. They hadn't been able to get out of it and paid the fine, much to Zach's annoyance. Now he remembered a balloon release at the end of the after-party, which the Wild Kratts must have seen on the news.

While Zach spluttered and failed to form words coherent enough to accurately express his desire to maim Chris, the smug Kratt simply handed Zach another empty balloon. He pointed commandingly at the helium tank and stayed to watch while Zach filled and tied that one, then went off to continue decorating with a satisfied grin.

*That was humiliating…* Zach mused mentally as he continued the task without further complaint. This was more to avoid further interaction with Chris than anything else. Aside from being generally pissed about a sum of several thousand; nobody had actually stopped to teach him something so mundane since Aviva had taken the time to help him fish when they were kids. Granted he only paid enough attention to keep from looking stupid, but she had still helped. The difference was that Aviva had liked him at the time and Chris did not. Hopefully.

Naturally, Zach attributed the lesson to the balloon release and nothing more, but still. There definitely could have been a lot more ridicule involved in the teaching process than had actually occurred. Chris had been surprisingly nice about it. It was unsettling and weird.

As if it had been a sudden afterthought Zach yelled at his Zachbot acidly for obeying someone else. This maintained at least the illusion that his red face was due to anger and  _nothing else_. He and pulled it off well enough to satisfy his insecurity, but that still didn't change Zach's awareness of the actual cause for his continuing flush. Despite the embarrassment, Zach sort of appreciated Chris's assistance and he was starting to feel like he could start liking these people if he stayed too long.

And that was BAD.

He made a mental note to avoid the younger Kratt and/or make it a point to be rude if at all possible for the remainder of his contract. Chris clearly the most dangerous in the familiarity area now being that Koki was still pretty pissed at Zach and conveniently doing the avoiding for him (and he was NOT apologizing). Martin and Jimmy could safely be tolerated and hopefully Aviva would arrive after he left so he wouldn't have to actually see her for a significant length of time.

Laughing was bad, sharing his and Aviva's history had been inadvisable, and a small measure of inadvertent friendliness had been accidental; those things could be safely ignored or forgotten once he left this massive mistake of a job and reestablished business as usual. With the knowledge and practical experience he had gained by legally sifting through Aviva's inventions he could hack, remotely control, imitate, or improve  **anything**  the Kratts could throw at him ever again. Unless Aviva completely changed her methods and strategies and invented all new equipment, that is.

It would put him on the track to improving his business model immensely if he could just manage to keep the Kratts team from thwarting him at every turn. Their interference represented a sizeable dent in his projected profit margin every single year from preventing him gathering the necessary resources (i.e. animals) that he needed to sell his products. He WOULD find a way to stop that. Even if that meant doing as Aviva suggested and working without using the actual animals he would initially still need test subjects to make the imitations possible and Zach didn't have the advantage of willing, color-coded, catch-phrase-spouting guinea pigs.

And all of those awesome advantages would be useless if he actually started becoming friends with any of these tree-hugging Wild Rats, to say nothing of risking feeling actual guilt over his actions for the first time since he'd been young enough to put in a time-out. It was simply a hazard he couldn't afford.

* * *

 

Of course, there were some concessions he would just have to make in order to maintain a bearable working environment; which apparently included taking Aviva's place in the yearly farce that was the Wild Kratts in an online MMORPG that Jimmy made them play with him on his birthdays. HOW he had managed to force them into this was not directly stated but Zach highly suspected a steady supply of sweets and snacks and coffee was at risk if they didn't comply.

If Zach wasn't being strong-armed into playing it too he would have been impressed by the blackmail. As it was the silent agreement between Martin, Chris, and Koki was that if they were going down, Zach was going with them.

Thus he found himself sitting at Aviva's station logging into an infuriatingly saccharine-looking fairy-tale world populated by elves, wizards, dwarfs, and other such nonsense. Part of the experience was, apparently, wearing your headphones to get the full immersion of the sound effects and background music punching your eardrums into the sides of your brain. As a result of this everyone was typing in the messaging windows instead of talking despite sitting in the  _same room_.

The messaging window was immediately populated by Zach complaining.

**[Zach: I've never played this, so don't attack me until I figured out the controls.]**

**[Jimmy: Nobody's played this one but me. I wanted you to be on equal level with everyone else.]**

**[Martin: Where are we?]**

**[Koki: Clearly we're in hell.]**

**[Chris: How did you get THERE from a fantasy world?]**

**[Koki: Name the two most depressing environments in human history. Anyone?]**

**[Zach: I got it. The Middle Ages and High School. Isn't that a school for Wizards up there in that castle? ]**

**[Koki: Yup. Poor little things.]**

**[Martin: While Koki and Zach have a point, their logic is flawed.]**

**[Chris: How's that?]**

**[Martin: If this were hell it would have Fire Ants in it.]**

**[Chris: Are you ever going to get over that?]**

**[Martin: No.]**

**[Zach: I'm afraid to ask.]**

**[Jimmy: Are you sure? It's a funny story.]**

**[Martin: NO IT'S NOT!]**

**[Jimmy: Can we actually play the game now please?]**

**[Koki: Sorry.]**

**[Martin: Sorry.]**

**[Chris: Sorry.]**

**[Zach: Why did you tell me to be the magic guy?]**

**[Jimmy: It's the best option for someone who learns controls quickly, this world doesn't have tech so summoned beasts are the closest you can get to Zachbots, and you like black clothes and have evil tendencies anyway.]**

**[Zach: Ok, that's true but I can't even carry a shield. Everyone else has way bigger green meters than I do. That's how much life I have, right? ]**

**[Jimmy: Yes.]**

**[Zach: So I'm basically made of tinfoil.]**

**[Koki: How is that any different from reality?]**

**[Chris: I second Koki.]**

**[Jimmy: You'll get stronger as you level up and you're sort of necessary for a balanced team, so until you can cast shields and higher-level stuff we'll just have to help you out.]**

**[Zach: Oh, really? ]**

**[Martin: Uh-oh.]**

**[Koki: Why'd you have to tell him that!?]**

**[Zach: Stand around me, minions!]**

**[Jimmy: We're NOT your minions, you have to summon them. Press F2.]**

**[Koki: We're also on a server that allows players to attack each other, not just the enemies, and the cost of resurrection will be worth teaching you a lesson in fair play.]**

**[Zach: You're no fun.]**

**[Jimmy: Open a portal to the nearest town or I will show you what 4 HP really means.]**

**[Zach: If you guys can attack me, then I can attack you too!]**

**[Chris: Correct, but I was the caster last time. Whereas casting takes time, swinging a giant club does not. Now be a good cloaked abomination and do what the Warrior says before he turns you into a cloaked puddle.]**

**[Zach: Aw.]**

_[Portal to Town is now open.]_

**[Jimmy: I gotta admit he's accurately playing a Sorcerer.]**

**[Koki: Please don't encourage this.]**

**[Martin: I like how there's wildlife and stuff running around. Makes it seem more realistic.]**

**[Chris: Yeah, it is sort of forest-like here. There's bird song and everything.]**

**[Jimmy: Just sayin'. Roleplaying is one of the best parts of these games.]**

**[Zach: If I have the Birthday Boy's permission to role play then you're all overruled. ]**

**[Chris: HEY!]**

**[Martin: A bunny! You fried a little bunny!]**

**[Zach: Calm down. It was a DIGITAL bunny. Now get in the portal or I'll change the destination to this big active volcano I see in my casting window.]**

**[Jimmy: Ah, the fantasy-adventure team working together out of fear of mutual destruction… This is the best game we've played so far.]**

**[Koki: How is this better?]**

**[Jimmy: Because this time the Sorcerer is actually evil. ]**

**[Koki: STILL not a good thing!]**

_[Koki has entered the Portal.]_

_[Jimmy has entered the Portal.]_

**[Chris: Come on, Martin.]**

_[Chris has entered the Portal.]_

**[Martin: I shall avenge you, bunny!]**

**[Zach: GET IN THE PORTAL.]**

* * *

 

Hours later they finally closed down the game because it was getting dark and both Jimmy and Zach were having entirely too much fun. Jimmy had been correct in believing Zach would do well as a Sorcerer and his comically evil antics, while intended to frustrate his fellow players, were mostly just amusing them. Zach Varmitech left to wander free-range in a video game was exactly as entertaining to watch as a fireworks factory ablaze and just as difficult to stop once he gained momentum. The only thing that thwarted him was a bathroom break during which everyone logged off before he could get back.

Since everyone else had signed off and gotten third helpings of party food Jimmy put in a different game which everyone was watching him play while they ate.

"What's this place?" asked Martin, who had been actually paying attention to the game's storyline.

"This is the bad guy's laboratory," Jimmy pointed excitedly. "You can tell because of all the blinky dials and flashy lightning-things!"

"…Tesla Coils," Zach visibly twitched and took the lollipop he had swiped off the table out of his mouth. Behind him he heard Martin snicker and looked suspiciously at the candy, noticing that the white stick close to the top had turned a bright and vibrant blue. Zach frowned and put it in the trash fretfully in the knowledge that the entirety of his mouth looked like that now, too.

Jimmy shrugged. "I couldn't think of the word."

"But you can name every stupid beast and monster in these games despite most of them resembling sound effects rather than actual words?" Zach hazarded.

"I guess I'm just a little better at that part than the tech stuff."

Zach palmed his face and slid down the chair until he was and almost completely under the station.

Chris, who had been sitting right beside Zach before he had metaphorically hidden under a rock, rolled his eyes. "Really? You  _just now_  realized what you sound like when you say 'thingy' all the time?"

"Yes," Zach answered, balling up his fist not-covertly and aimed for Chris's lap. "Have  **you**  realized I'm in the perfect position to make you a tenor for the rest of the day?"

Chris snorted, but wisely kicked his chair away from the station Zach was hiding under, wondering why the threat had surprised him. A couple of minutes of cordial conversation wasn't about to stop Zach from being Zach. It was still disappointing though.

**Day 13**

The aftermath of Jimmy's party had been cleared away by the Zachbots overnight, which led to the same comments as the last time the Tortuga had been thoroughly sanitized. Upon returning for actual work that morning Zach had gone down into the lower levels to do some routine checks on the vehicles since Jimmy had taken one of the Buzz Bikes into town. Jimmy had refueled it and everything, which meant Zach had nothing left to do there, and he checked off the last line item on Aviva's to-do list.

He stared at the thing for a while, making sure he hadn't checked off anything he still needed to do by mistake, before sighing. "Now what?"

"You can help me change the bedding-" Martin began, making Zach shriek and jump backward five feet, "-in the animal's cages."

"No, I am not helping with anything that doesn't concern computers, discs, vehicles, or inventions. And STOP THAT!" Zach yelled. "How do you sneak around like that anyway?"

Martin pushed the button on his creature power suit, while holding a tuft of fur in the other hand, and transformed into a bright orange jaguar. He held his arms out proudly. "Ta-dah!"

"I'm pretty sure I would have noticed that," Zach drawled.

Martin looked down at himself and shrugged. 'Well, I was black last time, and you were pretty focused on your data pad. You walked right by me."

Zach rubbed his forehead and groaned. "Whatever. I'll go see if Koki needs anything. If there's nothing for me to actually do I'm going back to bed."

"I could still use help-"

"I am here to service your TECHNOLOGY! I do NOT clean up after animals!" Zach snapped, and went back up to the top level before Martin could ask him again.

He was still muttering about it when he heard a crash and ran to the noise. Of course Martin zipped past him, still in animal form, leaving Zach to try and catch up. Despite having a heck of a head start Zach arrived well after Martin and leaned against the doorway to try and catch his breath. "What… did you… break… NOW!?" he huffed.

"Your stupid Zachbots put too much wax on the floor," Koki said by way of explanation.

Zach could see that she was still standing, so he scanned the room for the actual culprit and found Jimmy sitting near the counter rubbing his head. He had clearly slipped and was unhurt, but the coffee pot he had been holding at the time had gone flying and landed on a pair of Zachbots that had been waiting for Zach to return for his breakfast.

Despite all of them looking exactly the same from the outside there were different designs and purposes to the bots since only so many accessories could be stored within each one, and neither of these particular bots was designed to get wet as they were service bots and not field bots. They spluttered and convulsed as the liquid seeped through their joints and interfered with the circuitry within, dropping the trays they had been holding and getting oatmeal, coffee, juice, and biscuits everywhere. Zach tried to deactivate them via remote, but they were already too badly soaked through to respond.

"Get back!" Zach advised, and the Kratts Team did so until the convulsions eventually subsided enough for Zach to go over and yank their power supplies out manually without risking getting whacked by uncontrolled flailing metal limbs.

Once that was done and the danger had passed an eerie silence ensued among the Kratts while Zach knelt beside his destroyed robots in puddles of things he would no doubt shout about the second he recovered. Sure they had destroyed droves of the things on purpose during fights, but now that they'd  _accidentally_  taken some out it felt incredibly awkward; like breaking things a friend had brought over.

Suddenly there was a pop and sizzle behind them, and everyone turned to see the teleporter reacting badly to being soaked in juice.

Zach stood up and angrily threw the power supplies down, splashing more mess on himself in the process. He stormed over to Koki's station and dialed Aviva.

Jimmy swallowed. "Sorry, Zach. It was-"

"An  _accident_ , I KNOW. It's ALWAYS an  _accident_!" he snapped back. "I'm amazed you guys get anything done with the amount of  _accidents_  that happen around here!"

"We can get a new coffee pot and you have lots more Zachbots," Koki snapped at him. "And we won't be on any missions for a while so we have lots of time to fix the teleporter. It can't be that big a deal. Why are you bothering Aviva?"

"Because I don't know HOW to fix the teleporter," he growled, and turned back to the screen. "Once again the plans are in her head and not actually filed anywhere!"

* * *

 

Aviva woke from a dead sleep and answered her beeping creature pod with all the dread of a sixties sitcom housewife checking to see if a mouse was in the breadbox. The scene she was greeted with was this: Zach Varmitech looming large over the camera, covered in unidentifiable fluids and food, clearly very angry; he was flushed badly enough that he almost had a normal skin tone on most of his face. Behind him were two obviously defunct Zachbots lying in a mess similar to the one that covered Zach, and all of her friends looking either worried, angry, or in Chris's case, confused as he stepped into the scene rather late. Martin was a jaguar for reasons she would inquire about later, since his expression didn't indicate he was the guilty party at present. For now…

"How to you  **stand**  these people?" Zach demanded hotly. "They're as accident-prone as George-of-the-Jungle!"

 _"What did they break?"_  she rasped quietly, the sharp glint to her eyes carrying the actual volume her voice could not achieve at the moment.

"My  ** _patience_** , in addition to a Manta Rider, half of the Buzz Bikes – and I don't mean two out of four; they literally managed to break the  **front half**  of every single bike, the left rear propulsion engine on the Tortuga, Martin's Creature Power Suit,-"

Martin interrupted, "Technically YOU broke that-"

Zach continued heedlessly,"-the bathroom mirror-"

"That one was my bad!" Koki shouted from off-screen. "And I fixed it!"

"-the teleporter, coffee pot, and two of my Zachbots," he listed in an exhausted drawl. "Of them all; the coffee pot is by far the most annoying." That much was true. He had plenty more Zachbots at home and everything else belonged to the Kratts. Zach would need massive amounts of caffeine to remain functional under these trying conditions, though, and he had better get it soon.

Aviva would have screamed in rage but didn't have the energy or the voice for it. She opted instead to ball up her fists and pound them repeatedly into her forehead until the resulting blunt force trauma somewhat dulled her ability to feel it. Twelve or more violent jars to the brain later she was able to face the monitor again without biting through her tongue.

"Much as I hate to admit it I am honestly no replacement for you, Aviva; and now I know why." Zach said this with surprising grace indicating he had yet to administer the punch line.

"Because you a have a bad temper?" Koki ventured from the background.

"No," Zach corrected. ", because I'm a bad  ** _babysitter_**! The next time you guys need a stand-in Mommy you'd better hire someone who has experience watching children!"

"You can't talk to us like that-" Martin began, but Zach turned the monitor to allow Aviva's glare to hit its appropriate target and he snapped his mouth shut like a startled clam. Zach may not scare the Kratts Team, but Aviva seemed to.

" _Someone_  should," he snapped. Zach waited for further argument before continuing. "Now; I am going to fulfill my end of the contract because the legal and financial backlash of leaving you hanging would be worse than dealing with you idiots for one more week – though not by much- but there will be some new rules. I called Aviva so she can approve them because I know none of you will listen if she doesn't agree with me."

"That's true," Chris stated flatly.

"First; nobody uses anything I'm responsible for repairing unless they either tell me or a Zachbot first; that way at least I can give Aviva a directory of who to punish when she gets back, and how badly, based on who broke what and how. Depending on how well this works I highly expect she'll make it a permanent addition to the team. It will also function as a commission list so I can properly calculate my overtime hours."

"Fine." Chris's eyes narrowed. "Anything else?"

"Yes, I will no longer allow any of you in my jet," he hissed. "I refuse to continue this charade for another week. No more supervising me while I sleep."

Martin winced. "Can he do that?"

Aviva nodded from her screen. Her voice was weak, but capable. "He's been good long enough. Give him a break."

Nobody argued, but they certainly didn't look pleased about it.

Zach rubbed his temples and sighed. "And since the plans for the Teleporter aren't actually here-"

Aviva winced. "I meant to plot those out."

"How many years ago did you 'mean to' plot them out?" Zach asked.

From her look it was obvious it had been a few. "I'll give you directions over video. Just call me when you start."

Zach nodded smartly and abruptly hung up on her. "Now if you'll all excuse me I am going to go shower, fix my Zachbots, and do my best not to bolt the instant I'm in my jet without any unwelcome passengers 'supervising' me every second!"

* * *

 

Neither of them was quite sure how it started.

Aviva was now able to talk and was utilizing her returned eloquence with visible pleasure, though it still sounded like she had been gargling thumbtacks and she needed frequent breaks. After they had collaborated on fixing the teleporter she had asked for a progress report and Zach had been delivering it in a robotic tone for fifteen minutes before he started sending her numbers in a text window because saying them out loud was just tedious after it hit anything above the hundred-thousands. They had been talking, comparing notes on the repairs and progress and the new discs, Zach had mercilessly teased Aviva about not keeping backup files… and suddenly it had turned into a typing contest the instant Aviva replied in the text window instead of speaking while she was drinking her coffee.

No actual words were exchanged anymore. Both were playing woodpecker as if the keyboards had personally offended them somehow and needed to be softly bludgeoned until they apologized. Who was winning was anyone's guess – it was impossible to have a frame of reference given that each message was different and thus none of them were plucked out at the same speed. That little technicality didn't stop them from continuing though. Pride was on the line. Stopping was as good as admitting defeat. It had been going on for fourteen minutes at least.

 **[I demand to know why you cannot come back now that you can talk. That means you're getting better.]**  Zach insisted doggedly.  **[I don't want to be here any longer than I absolutely have to.]**

**[The three weeks is how long is needed for the antibiotics regimen to be completed. I don't get it but it's complicated because they're using combinations or something because of how bad it was when I got here. We're both trapped until that's done, unless you want to build a quarantine zone in the Tortuga and pay off my doctor.]**

Zach said, "Ooh!" out loud before he caught himself and typed.  **[Is that an option?]**

**[No.]**

**[I'll make you a really NICE quarantine zone. I won't even charge for it.]**

**[Still no, and I was kidding.]**

**[Aren't you tired of being stuck in bed yet?]**

**[Yes. And I'm sure you're tired of everyone over there. We'll just have to wait it out.]**

Zach sighed and sat back fretfully.  **[I shouldn't have agreed to this in the first place.]**

Aviva blinked. "Why?" she asked quietly. "It is really that bad?"

"I win," he smirked instantly.

She laughed, but carefully so she didn't need to cough after. "Ok, you win. Now what are you talking about?"

"Remember when you told me being around those two Wild Rats was like… contagious?"

Aviva shook her head. "I said they had infectious personalities."

"Aw, yours sounds better," he complained. "I'm trying to figure out why I didn't just leave. I was in my jet, still mad, by myself, and I came  _back here_. It doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe you wanted to see how the teleporter worked?" she offered. "You did pretty good on repairing it for the most part. I only needed to help with the really intricate parts. I'm impressed."

"Thanks," he said without thinking, then startled and narrowed his eyes at her as if she had tricked him into saying that.

Aviva ignored that and replied kindly, "You're welcome."

"Whatever. I don't think that's it." After a moment of thinking he shrugged. "Maybe it's the discs I'm looking forward to. I'm not much into animals but the programming itself is a... slight challenge. The worst part is checking the old discs. Those that don't accept the pass codes you supplied me with keep  _yelling at me*_ ," he snapped.

Aviva smiled, proud of that last touch on her discs. "Each one has a different code. Of course I didn't give you all of my pass codes, that'd be too much trust at once," she said plainly. "Would you give me your pass codes, even if I was helping you?"

"There isn't a tone I am capable of using without a Darth Vader voice filter to convey that 'NO' strongly enough," he droned.

"Well?"

"Fine." Zach stood and started pacing, which only annoyed Aviva because he kept going in and out of her vision. "What I want to know is why I have to keep you and Blue Boy's little secret. No one else is up and I already know; so  _spill it_."

Aviva frowned. "That's personal."

"If you don't spill I will," he threatened. "Watching the fallout of whatever the actual problem is might just make the rest of this contract bearable."

"Martin might kick your ass," she said with an air of sympathy.

Zach paused, but continued his threats regardless. "Then I'll be able to get out of the contract early and believe me when I say my lawyers are better than yours."

"It's stupid and childish and I don't want to talk about it!" she snapped.

Zach grinned. "Ooh... I remember that tone. Fine, I'll go ask Jimmy if he knows-"

"I fooled around with Chris," she hissed. "Happy?"

Zach scoffed. "No, because it's too predictable. More, please. Was this before or after you developed a taste for ditz?"

Aviva growled and plopped her head down. After a few moments of muttering Spanish profanity into the blanket she was lying on she looked back up. "Will you keep it to yourself if I give you the details?"

"I might," he offered. "On the condition that you take full responsibility for telling me with Martin. Much as I want out of this I still don't want to tick off the guy that carried his dead-weight brother two miles and down half a cliff in less than two hours. I'm surprised he isn't shaped like Dabio."

As Aviva reluctantly agreed and relayed the tale, even Zach had to admit it was complicated.

_*See: Race for the Hippo Disc_

**Day 14**

"No," Zach said pre-emptively the instant Martin opened his mouth.

"I haven't even asked yet!" the older Kratt protested.

Zach snorted. "You're going to ask me something that has to do with that slimy nasty eel-thingy in the tank you brought in earlier. I'm not touching it or helping you clean the tank."

Martin rolled his eyes. "Hagfish, and you don't have to touch it or anything; just scan it."

"Let me guess: you want a disc?"

"Yes."

"Why?" Zach asked dryly. He had given up on getting his current project done by now and just wanted an explanation for the interruption. He swiveled the chair around and crossed his arms, waiting. He was reasonably sure that Aviva hadn't told Martin that Zach knew about their situation, so didn't feel the need to be polite to prevent a thrashing.

Martin smiled. It was amazing how much a little thing like facing him made the blonde feel like Zach was paying more attention. He wasn't; Zach always paid exactly the same amount of attention to what either Wild Rat was saying no matter what direction he was facing, which was just enough to comprehend the subject and entertain his new favorite mental image regarding his rivals that featured tranquilizer darts. Martin leaned in as if he was about to impart a world-shattering secret.

Zach cringed back into his seat and failed to maintain appropriate personal space.

"We're having a contest of the best animal escape artists!" Martin whispered.

"Good for you," Zach drawled. He lifted his right foot and placed it in Martin's chest, pushing back slowly enough to prevent actually knocking him down and being accused of assault but certainly fast enough to make his point.

Martin didn't bother backing off and continued to lean in on Zach's foot anyway. "We're not supposed to know what the other one is choosing, so you can't tell-"

Chris came in from the door and said, "Hey Zach," before he spotted Martin and frowned. He quickly turned with the covered enclosure he was carrying and put it behind his back.

They gave each other playfully competitive glares and Chris stalked off to leave Martin to request his choice first.

Zach rolled his eyes. "When is this contest supposed to take place?"

"In three days. Chris'll be fully recovered by then and we'll be in a good place on a wide open plain. The competition starts at dawn."

"He's fully recovered NOW, you're just crazy!" Zach snapped, then he slumped. "Wait. Does that mean I have to get up early too?"

"Yes. Part of the job. Sorry."

"No you're not," Zach said pointedly. Martin didn't argue; he just continued smiling. "One question first."

Martin finally stood up straight and grinned. "Sure."

"If you aren't telling each other what you picked, and you're both animal experts with access to huge databases and time to do the right research, then how do you know you aren't going to pick the same thing?" Zach asked blankly. "Unless you've specified different environments of origin for each competitor you'll just wind up having the same results."

"Won't you just tell us if we give you the same requests?"

Zach raised a brow. "No. It's easier to copy one code onto two discs than to make two separate discs. Anything you stooges do that lessens my workload is fair play to me. Besides, it'd be pretty fun to watch you both metaphorically pick 'rock' over and over again."

Martin's eyes widened, then he sprinted out of the room shouting for Chris. Zach turned and banged his forehead several times none-too-gently on the station. It was going to be a looooong couple of days.

* * *

 

"Can't you work any faster? I want my collection of escape artist animals done before Martin's," Chris prodded. "I'll get you more coffee," he added by way of glaringly obvious bribery.

It had been like this since the instant he had received their animal lists. Thing Green and Thing Blue had been pestering Zach endlessly like children sucking up to get their allowances early. Each was insisting they get their own discs made before their counterpart's and were generally making a show of trying to gain Zach's favor in order to achieve that goal. Zach had begun to deliberately avoid working on the discs relevant to whichever idiot was pestering him at the time but since they kept switching off that just meant he would lose his place in the endlessly tedious codes and have to either remember his place or start over again. He gave that strategy up quickly and did not have the option of stopping altogether because willfully refusing to work during those 'reasonable work hours' was, surprise, a breach of contract.

So he was stuck trying to pull off an impossible number of discs (eight in total, four for each idiot) in an impossible amount of time (a little less than two days) with horrendously annoying distractions he was powerless to end. With Jimmy still mad about the children comment and embarrassed about the slipping incident, and Koki still fuming over the secretary comment, Zach was entirely on his own during the onslaught. Asking for their help would have been a blow to his pride anyway; he wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

There was always a downside to intentionally making, or maintaining, enemies.

And now on top of that the very Kratt that had requested he curb his caffeine addiction was tempting him with it at a time when he desperately needed it, too. It was like dangling a pitcher of water just out of reach of someone suffering dehydration.

Zach's left eyebrow twitched. " _You asked me not to drink caffeine after noon_ ," he stated bitingly.

Chris grinned and continued his friendly tone. "You're working a lot. I'll make an exception today."

" **Shoo** , or I'll switch out and start working on Blue Boy's discs just to bug you," the tech mogul hissed. "I do not respond to begging unless it's done exceptionally well and you are failing. Badly."

"Does bribery work?" Chris persisted. "Martin's better at begging anyway."

*I'll bet he is,* was Zach's first thought. He groaned and stopped programming, letting his head fall onto the station loudly. When he looked back up there was a red spot on his pale forehead. "What do you have to bribe me with? Everything I want is a breach of contract." He paused and glared down at the hand clasped on his shoulder. "Unless you're willing to go off and break your  _own_  fingers to save me the trouble."

"Please," Chris scoffed, unconcerned. "You'd just have a Zachbot do it."

"At this point even issuing the order would be taxing," Zach said tiredly. "Go away. This is hard enough already."

Chris frowned and seemed to think, then brightened. "How about I invite you to the next Meteor Shower?"

Zach hated that he was actually tempted. "No. Two out of five of you Wild Rats hate me, which is a low percentage but trust me I'm working on improving it, and we'll be back to business as usual by then. I doubt you'll remember or that the rest of your little posse will agree."

"Come on," Chris urged. "If you insist we'll meet somewhere else. I'm sure they'll be fine without me for one night. We'll even make it a Halloween theme, since it's in October!"

"Still no," he said, turning and trying to get started on the code again. What had just moments ago been perfectly comprehensible alleles had, in the few moments he had stopped to talk, become gibberish. His eye twitched again and he put a hand over it to rub the offending muscle. "I'll watch it by myself. I don't need you to look at lights in the sky."

There would be a bright moon for the Draconid Meteor Shower anyway… he'd skip that one and just watch the Orionids instead. Regardless, Chris really didn't need to know that Zach had already memorized the times and moon cycles for the next six events. He'd just get smug about it.

"You do  _everything_  by yourself," Chris complained. "It's not good for you. Don't you have any friends?"

Zach rounded on him, the knowledge that he would have to start his current coding all over again thanks to the relentless prattling causing him to lose his focus was more than enough to make him snap. "Friend," he began defining angrily. "One attached to another by affection or esteem usually exclusive of family or intimate relationships; one that is not hostile; a favored companion that one enjoys being with and/or helps and supports, often without having to be asked first." He stood and glared as if he wanted to burn the answer into Chris's retinas telepathically. " ** _NO_**. I don't think I've ever had one of those. Lot of people  **pretended**  to be one but never quite lived up to the term. Thanks for bringing it up, though;  _now I have something to_   _brood about while I'm on my break_."

Chris, stunned, stared after him.

"Yeesh…" Martin winced. He had just come up from the lower levels and walked over to Chris, imitating the shocked stare. "I just got here in time for the last bit. What'd you do?"

Chris shook his head to gather his wits. "I said I'd go see the next meteor shower with him and he said no, then I asked him if he had any friends and he yelled  _definitions_  at me before storming off to take a break… which I assume will involve a Zachbot pampering and another angry phone call to Aviva."

Martin smiled benignly. "He calls her to complain to an awful lot for someone that has no friends."

Chris crossed his arms. "Zach isn't obtuse, you know. If he doesn't want friends then he'll work against yours and Aviva's little scheme. He's already got Koki and Jimmy giving him the silent treatment."

Martin sighed. "Yeah, but they're… not really involved in the project."

Chris gave Martin a disapproving look. "Do me a favor and don't refer to people as 'projects'."


	5. What We See

**Chapter 5: What We See**

* * *

 

**Week 3**

* * *

 

"The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight." ~ John Berger,  _Ways of Seeing_

* * *

 

**Day 15**

That morning the Kratts Team were very distressed to realize Zach was not there at his usual time. They had stopped for the night so Jimmy could sleep at a reasonable hour, so Zach had gone to his jet early. Since the 'not allowed in the jet' rule had become official nobody really wanted to test it, but they looked in through the windows anyway. They saw no one but a few Zachbots apparently charging themselves in an alcove near the main controls.

"GREAT, we lost him," Martin whined. "Who's going to make our discs now?"

"…or he's invisible," Koki offered. "He does have that cloak."

"How are we supposed to keep track of someone both nerdy  _and_  clever enough to make an actual Invisibility Cloak?" Chris complained, scanning the outside of the jet suspiciously. "Besides, why would he walk around wearing it if nobody was there to notice he was doing it?"

Jimmy sighed wistfully. "If I could do that I totally would. Do you have ANY IDEA what level you have to be in most games to gain invisibility?"

Koki continued without commenting on that. "I don't see any Zachbots moving around in there, either. If he was in there they'd be serving him tea or something, not lining up like toy soldiers on the wall."

Jimmy started wringing his hands. "He should tell us before he leaves."

Martin lifted a brow. "Are you freaking out because Zach left?"

"No," Jimmy answered entirely too quickly. "I just like to know where people are! I mean I'm used to you and Chris disappearing without warning, but Koki and Aviva always tell me-"

"Yeah, he's freaking out over Zach." Koki shook her head. "Calm down. Since when do you like him enough to freak out over him anyway? He probably just went for a walk or something."

Martin thought about that aloud. "Zach. In nature. Willingly."

There was a silence while they absorbed this. There was a wooded area nearby with something of a frequented trail where the more adventurous hikers dared to test their mettle, which wouldn't be a problem if Zach just rode on one of his Zachbots as usual. Despite Zach himself being basically useless in nature his inventions were amazingly versatile and compensated marvelously for their creator being completely inept outside of civilization. There was also an admittedly rough city in the other direction, which also wouldn't be a problem since Zach was a city-dweller anyway and not many people are willing to accost the guy flanked by red-eyed robots. Honestly they couldn't tell which one was the more attractive prospect for Zach to visit: the animal cache or his natural environment.

"We'd better go find him," Chris drawled. "There's bears and wildcats and things in the woods."

"Yeah," Martin agreed. "And muggers and gangs in the city. Either way Zach could… hurt one of them."

Jimmy raised his hand. "I'll stay in the Tortuga in case he comes back."

Koki sighed and motioned to Martin. "Let's head into town, then. I'm not going there by myself."

"Ha, I get to hike and track," Chris said gladly, and ran off to get his gear before Martin could protest.

* * *

 

A Zachbot hovered near Zach as he typed on his laptop, holding up an umbrella to block the dew falling out of the trees he was camped under. The laptop was plugged into another Zachbot that had an extra battery for the express purpose of acting like a backup outlet if Zach needed power outside. He had been out there since 2 a.m. after realizing insomnia just wasn't going to let him rest that night. Being too tired to sleep was precisely as frustrating for someone with a mind as active as his was as being too busy to get any actual work done. With both happening at the same time he had separated himself from his work areas and ventured out to do something entirely for himself.

It had been a while since he invented something just for fun.

Martin had given him a magnificent idea. It hadn't been deliberate, but when Zach was searching through Martin's things and found the paintballs he had also found a big rock that even he recognized as a shark tooth – the biggest one he had ever seen. It made sense that the water-oriented brother would have shark teeth but Zach was completely unprepared for the sheer enormity of the thing.

That was when he did a little poking around online and discovered the Megalodon. The tooth he had seen in Martin's room looked like a rock because it was a rock – the tooth had fossilized. Curiosity reared up in him in a way that had never happened outside of engineering and he'd read all he could about the extinct critter. It was honestly the first animal Zach thought was cool all by itself with no mechanical enhancements.

And, per Aviva's suggestion, Zach had decided to make a new invention that was designed  _after_  an animal without using the animal itself. It helped immensely that the things didn't actually exist anymore; he had no choice really. Even if he built conservatively (but of course he wouldn't) on the size it would still be an impressive beast of a machine. No matter what the Kratts pulled out; the Hippo-sub, the squid-sub, any animal they could change into, and any animal actually in the ocean; they would all comparatively be chew toys to his new submarine!

Oh, and he would make it black with red eyes too. That only made sense. It had to be obvious it was a Varmitech creation, after all. He wasn't exactly known for this sort of thing and he didn't want any other inventors to get the credit.

Zach continued doodling on his sketch pad starting with the main body design and working inward toward each piece and wire for hours. By the time he finally looked up from his sketchpad after realizing he was hungry it was nearly ten and he was late for work.

Damn. He'd been hoping he could get through the entire contract without the Wild Kratts having any legitimate reason to complain about his work.

"Why didn't you tell me it was so late?" he griped at his Zachbots, who merely tilted their heads down in pretend apology like they had been programmed to whenever Zach used that tone. He sighed and got up.

Chris Kratt chose that moment to descend from the tree above him and exclaim, "Zach! There you are!"

Startled, Zach leapt backward hard enough to throw one of his Zachbots off balance and collide with the tree. The Zachbot managed to right itself, but Zach did not. His head had hit with enough force to make sparkles dance across his vision and, to his dismay, felt something snap near his lower back at the same time. He slid down the tree trunk with a groan and grasped the back of his head, where he just knew a large bruise would be forming later. "Don't DO that!"

Chris winced and knelt by him, looking around to the back of Zach's head to make sure he wasn't hurt. "Sorry. You ok?"

"No," he hissed. "My reading glasses were in my back pocket, and I'm pretty sure they're broken now. You're lucky my insurance covers that or you'd be paying for them, Green Guy."

Chris frowned at him, but pulled out his Creature Pod and informed his friends he'd found Zach.

"Finally! What was he doing?" Koki demanded.

"I lost track of time drawing up plans, ok?" Zach growled. "I may be evil, but being on time for work is something I pride myself on. I'll work late to make up the time."

"Good," she began, but pushed something away from her off-screen. Martin's voice could be heard, though not what he was saying exactly, and there was a distinctive childish whine to it. "No, you can't talk to Chris. Use your own creature pod! I see the candy store, but we're not going. No. We have to get back to work. I don't care if they have dark chocolate! I am not- Chris, gotta go!" Her line cut off abruptly as she hung up.

Chris shrugged it off as normal Martin behavior. Zach gave the creature pod an incredulous look. "How are we the same age?" he asked darkly.

Chris shrugged. "Because you and Martin were born in the same year. What were you doing out here?"

"Worried, Chris?" Zach teased.

"Yes – that you were capturing animals in the woods or making seedy business deals in the city," he replied testily. "Either way you were skipping work."

Zach stood, straightened, and glared as close as he could to Chris's eye-level. "I do NOT skip work! Time is money! If I had the hours to spare and didn't have to make so many stupid repairs and discs for you and your tree-hugging Wild Rats I would capture animals and make seedy business deals on my  _own_ time; unfortunately I barely have time to SLEEP. You guys are some of the most demanding jerks I've ever worked for and I'm including Donita! At least when she insisted I sleep on-site it was a proposition, not a work requirement!"

Chris was about to argue when that last statement hit him and he blinked. "I thought you two weren't together?"

"We're NOT." Zach palmed his face. "Is it really beyond you that adults can do that without being all lovey-dovey and stupid about it?"

"No, it's just not my sort of thing," he admitted. "And you seemed like you wanted more than that from her the way you were acting about it."

"Well, it didn't happen, did it?" he snapped and turned to put his sketchpad and broken glasses in one of his Zachbots. "Her loss. Now let's get back to the Tortuga so I can get started on those discs. It'll be a miracle if they're ready in time as it is."

Chris watched Zach start to walk away and sighed. He was actually feeling guilty he had suspected him of deliberately skipping out on work to do evil, which was annoying because he had every reason to think it a possibility. He jogged to catch up. "You can ask for more time to make the discs, you know."

Zach snorted. "That's not what Aviva told me."

Chris blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Uh-uh," Zach snapped. "I'm not starting THAT fight. You guys work it out on your own. Just know that it's entirely possible for an inventor to get burned-out if they don't get to do something just for fun every once in a while. When working on your own inventions starts to feel like work and stops being fun you might hit the equivalent of writer's block."

Chris jumped ahead of Zach and leapt over a stream, turning back to help him across only to find a Zachbot carrying him over instead. "Is that what you were doing out here?"

"Making something for fun? Yeah. I don't know if I'll actually build it, though."

"Why not?"

Zach huffed. "Because it looks too much like something Aviva would build, not me."

Chris lurched forward and grabbed Zach's arm. "Wait – you can't stop developing your own talents just because your rivalry with Aviva makes it difficult."

Zach glared at the hand for a moment, but otherwise ignored it. Pulling would have been a waste of energy. "Why not? If someone mistakes my work for hers she might get all the credit. And even if they don't it'd just be-" Zach growled and abruptly stopped.

Chris seemed legitimately disturbed by that. Zach  **knew** Aviva was better than him at a lot of things – he'd have to be stupid not to and Chris was positive the man wasn't stupid. But the implication that Zach was just  **giving up**  on anything she could beat him at because it wasn't worth the effort? Chris knew how that felt.

"Because you'll never get anywhere that way!" Chris insisted. "Sharing a talent with your rival doesn't mean you should stop using that talent; it means you should develop it until the differences become clearer."

Zach yanked his arm back now and continued walking only because Chris had let him go. "Oh, why does it matter to you? You've never had that problem." He continued his stomping toward the tree line, lamenting that he'd have to change his shoes after walking through the woods, and following his Zachbots because they actually knew where they were going. Truth be told he was only walking because Chris was here and the younger Kratt had accused him of letting the Zachbots pamper him too much; otherwise he would have perched atop a Zachbot as usual and continued sketching on the way there.

Chris chased after him and stood in Zach's way like a wrestler preparing for a charge. He pointed to a nearby tree and said, "Yes I did. Stop for a minute. I gotta' tell you something."

Zach hissed at him. "We are  _not friends_.  _You_  don't get to give me advice."

"Well, who does?" Chris demanded.

"Get out of my way." Zach tried to push his way past Chris, failed, tried to go around, and wound up shrieking and getting rescued by his Zachbots when Chris simply hooked an arm under Zach's waist and started to carry him to the tree instead. "That was very unwise," Zach said darkly while his Zachbots dangled Chris upside-down over the stream. "You know every one of my Zachbots is programmed to defend me."

Chris looked very unimpressed and, being accustomed to hanging upside-down anyway, yawned and stretched. "Fine; I didn't want to tell you about how Martin was a big jerk when we were growing up anyway."

Zach's eye twitched. "I know you're just baiting me with that, but I have to admit it's interesting."

Chris grinned smugly. "Good. Now get me down and I'll tell you."

Zach snapped his fingers and Chris landed head-first in the water. He sat up soaked with mossy water and mud and allowed a moment's frustration, but shrugged it off. By the time he got up and moved to the spot he'd indicated they talk earlier Zach was already there and drinking coffee, using one of his bots as a chair. He sat there regarding Chris as if he were a waiter late with his drinks.

Undeterred, Chris took off his backpack and pulled out the extra outfit he took on all his hikes in a sealed bag now, lest Koki and Aviva catch him sneaking in on the security camera again au-naturale. The slight choking noise behind him told him Zach was unprepared for that possibility, but it was just too bad. It was Zach's fault he was a mess in the first place.

"You know, when I was a kid I kept trying really hard to outdo Martin at everything," Chris began as he changed. "No matter how hard I tried I couldn't beat him. We lived in the same neighborhood. Don't you remember seeing us compete?"

Zach's voice was hesitant. "Yeah you two tore up the park a lot when you weren't rescuing my frogs and squirrels. Do you have a point?"

"Yes, just listen," Chris chided. "At thirteen I started catching up. We had been playing together for so long that I knew the things he did and had physically matured to the point where I could start doing them too. I was getting closer. But I never, ever beat him in the things I kept competing with him over; swimming, surfing, canoeing, jet skis… we even went spear-fishing once."

Zach snorted and melodramatically put a hand over his chest. "Be still my heart – you hunted one of your precious creatures yourself."

Chris shrugged. He'd finished changing and sat down on the grass next to Zach. "An Omnivore's gotta eat. And we only did it during a long expedition where packed food would have spoiled. It was, well, survival. I can't love animals without admitting predation is necessary."

"True. I feel compelled to point out you were competing with Martin in all the things he's naturally good at-" Zach paused mid-statement and frowned. "That's what you're trying to tell me? 'Don't do what they're good at, do what you're good at'? But Aviva and I are good at the same thing; inventing!"

Chris crossed his arms. "Stop guessing and let me finish."

Zach frowned and rolled his eyes, but didn't interrupt this time.

"You are right - things didn't improve until I stopped trying to copy Martin's talents and found my own. Martin was my big brother and I sort of idolized him so I just wanted to do the things he did. I trained and I read about techniques and I got advice but nothing worked. He always beat me." Chris sighed and lay back against the tree. "Finally I got fed-up and refused to compete with him anymore. I had reached my losing tolerance. I swear we went through a year when I wouldn't even look at anything bigger than a bathtub if Martin would have found out about it. I was really that mad."

"That doesn't sound like you two," Zach said quietly. "I did not miss you guys if you weren't out at the same time as me, so I can't tell if you're making this up. You're not, are you?"

"No," Chris laughed. "It'd sound cooler if I was making it up."

Zach added more cream to his coffee. "It sounds unlikely is all."

"Brothers do that stuff. Any normal friendship would have worked the same way. Even if you aren't doing it maliciously: pick on someone long enough and they won't want to be your friend anymore. With brothers you don't have a choice," Chris said evenly. "You can avoid conversation all you want but you still live in the same house and have the same parents and eat at the same dinner table. Sooner or later something's gotta give in the barrier. But neither of us would give in; we were too competitive with each other at that age. Martin wouldn't apologize for winning because that would be condescending, and I wouldn't apologize for being mad because I clearly had a right to be."

"So how did it turn out?" Zach asked with interest. "I suppose a fight is too much to hope for?"

Chris flicked a leaf at him. "Eventually Martin missed me more than he missed winning, so he begged me to do something else – anything else. We decided to just let the argument go, unresolved, and went horseback riding, hiking, stargazing, played sports. Even though we had left the fight behind it still lingered. No matter what we seemed to do we were either equally skilled, like riding and hiking, or he was better. It just never occurred to me in all that time that Martin might be winning because he was just older."

"The first time we went rock climbing Martin won. He won the second and third time too. He started to worry and asked if we should try something else… but I said no. Even though he was still winning I was having fun doing it. That should have tipped me off. I was losing but I wasn't mad about it because I liked climbing more than I wanted to win."

Zach huffed. "But you're  **better**  at climbing. How were you losing?"

Chris nodded. "NOW I am, but I didn't start getting better at it than Martin until I practiced to the point where my natural talent and experience exceeded his advantages over me. He was just bigger and had more strength to pull and a longer reach than I did, and he'd been doing active stuff for four years longer than I had. It was a question of age and experience. I had to train at climbing the same way anyone else does, but there finally came a tipping point where Martin couldn't get any better… and I could. He'd reached that tipping point with his talents long before I was a challenge because he was just four years older than me. I'll never forget the look on his face the first time I passed Martin on the rock face and he couldn't catch up! Ah, it was glorious…"

Zach raised a brow and Chris cleared his throat to snap himself out of that memory. "I had a talent for climbing; the same way Martin has a talent for being a total water-bug. But I never would have figured that out if I didn't stop trying to beat him at  _his game_  and tried something new. Maybe the reason you haven't found your Aviva-thwarting talent is because you haven't developed it enough to reach the tipping point over her… or even tried doing it yet. So think. What can you do that Aviva can't?"

Zach sighed. "I don't think a properly navigable filing system is cause for celebration there. Maybe that's why she's better at DNA coding. It's all swirly and chaotic like she is – everything links to everything else in spidery patterns that don't seem to follow any proper organization. I may be able to do it, but it isn't fun until the code becomes so massive that it's actually a challenge to punch it in within the time limit. I basically end up playing SIMON."

Chris hummed in thought. "Isn't DNA a bunch of interacting chemicals?"

Zach sat back against the tree trunk and sighed. "Yeah, and despite it being code-able it's really, really advanced chemistry. I know how to copy an existing example of DNA into a code for the computer, but I don't really get how the actual DNA functions. Aviva knows what the combinations actually DO and she might even be able to predict what the DNA codes in certain animals would be based on her comprehension of the strands." Zach snorted. "Chemistry is something Aviva does a lot better than me. We're pretty much even on robotics and programming aside from the fact that I just have more money and resources to make more robots than she can… and that doesn't quite count, does it?"

"Nope. Money is a lame superpower unless you combine it with something else too. The best you can do with that is surrounding yourself with a moat of lawyers, Lex Luthor-style… which I guess you do anyway," Chris shrugged and then cringed under Zach's glare. "Right. Not helping. Sorry."

"I can't think of anything I can do better than Aviva, not really," Zach said petulantly.

Chris sat up. "There's got to be something you do better than she does."

"Cheating," Zach offered flatly.

"Besides that."

"Weaponry."

"I would never bet against that, no," Chris snorted. "And  _please_  don't use that as the talent to develop. Now think. What can you do – that isn't destructive- that Aviva can't."

Zach stood and rubbed his temples. "This isn't going to work. I didn't sleep last night, I have a stupid number of discs to program in very little time, and I'm not sure if there is an actual skill I have that she doesn't."

Chris grit his teeth and lamented he was trying to council someone with a habit of giving up too easily. He put a hand on Zach's shoulder and was only mildly disappointed when Zach recoiled away from it. "You're smart. You'll think of something."

* * *

 

It had been a very long day of programming. Zach's fingers were sore, his brain felt like it was trying to leak out of his ears, and he was once again unable to sleep thanks to the mental equivalent of a jogger's high; he had done such a good job concentrating without interruption today that he couldn't seem to TURN IT OFF. His brain was still fervently working on anything and everything it could, which was preventing him from getting any rest.

Zach brooded in his jet's pilot chair. In front of him lay the plans for the Megalodon Submarine he had drawn up, untouched.

If anyone had been there to see him they would have backed away slowly; he was the absolute picture of a villain plotting bloody retribution. His expression was grave and his eyes pierced through the nothingness he was staring at with clear malice. He looked pallid and intentionally miserable, a slight sheen of worried sweat on his almost translucent skin, which made the dark circles under his tired eyes that much more dramatic. The bright contrast of his green eyes caused them to flare like flashes of lightning on a dark sky. Whatever he was plotting it was sure to be soul-shattering, if the look of him was any indication.

Fortunately that isn't what was actually happening in his head: Zach Varmitech was trying to rewire his thinking patterns. So it probably was a soul-shattering plot, only directed inward.

Damn it, no Wild Rat was supposed to make this much sense!

If he had been talking to Aviva then he could have written it off as her habit of intentionally messing with him. She didn't do it maliciously, true, but she still did it. Zach did not envy Martin's fate. Truly it was one thing to have a girlfriend that could tie cherry stems into knots with her tongue (which he wondered if Martin knew about yet), but an entirely different thing to have a girlfriend that could do exactly the same thing with logic. As far as winning an argument ever again, Martin was doomed, though admittedly he hadn't been on very steady footing to begin with.

As with the balloon thing Chris had no reason to be messing with Zach this time either.

Was it really true that he could FINALLY beat Aviva at something if he just figured out what to focus on?

The thought of that victory had his skin crawling. He could taste it.

He closed his eyes.

"What is it?" he asked himself quietly. There had to be something he could do that she couldn't. Several minutes of deliberating later he lost his patience, stood, and kicked his chair over in a fit of rage. It knocked against the console and rebounded, hitting him in the leg. He shrieked, fell, and pouted on the floor while he rubbed the sting out of the injury. He wasn't at all surprised when his hand came back red.

Maybe he should consider either finding another way to express his temper or buy furniture with less evil edges.

As expected his Zachbots sprang into action. Two grasped his arms to lift him up while a third tore the ruined section of his jeans and dressed the wound after analyzing whether he would require stitches. As this all occurred around him Zach mused blankly on how much programming it would take to make his Zachbots just a bit less literal, less disposable, and more intelligent. He knew the risks involved in making a machine that could think for itself. He was desperate to claim a victory over his rival, but not desperate enough to cause destruction on the scale a sentient team of robots could cause. It was one of the main reasons he preferred to use animals, though the control wasn't absolute, especially when young were involved.

Even human beings couldn't work out right from wrong sometimes, and that was his first clue as to the dangers of that venture. Much as he hated to admit it, Nature was smarter than he was. It wasn't a sentient kind of intelligence, but rather a trial-and-error type with the advantage of eons of practice. If nature hadn't figured out a perfect neural code that would work without flaws then what hope did he have of doing it?

NO code was without flaws, actually. Zach knew that. Being an expert in finding the faults of others' programs allowed him invaluable insight into how to disguise the flaws in his own codes – he simply left room for them in places that he knew nobody would look.

That was how Evolution worked, wasn't it? People had even written algorithms to prove that evolution worked by leaving room for useful changes to flourish, while unhelpful ones ceased functioning. If you could code evolution, then that must be how nature was doing it.

It was so much easier for him to find flaws in  _existing_  codes, like controlling the mind of a creature operating on pre-existing neural impulses, than it was to write his own neural codes and expect them to work properly. He could tell his Zachbots how to react to his body language, tones, and key words and behaviors, but they didn't THINK. Not REALLY. They did what they were told. With animals the pre-established neural code kept trying to reestablish control. It always seemed to happen for random reasons, too. Zach couldn't figure out exactly where the interference was coming from. It seemed to be different with each individual animal; even testing it within the same species gave him different results.

It was like they had  _personalities_  or something.

The Rhinos had all turned toward the baby when the Kratts had used it as bait, hadn't they? THAT was a uniform reaction, but he hadn't been able to duplicate it in the lab without one of the young actually being present to trigger it. Even recordings of the young didn't seem to work as well.

…

But that was STUPID. Animals didn't  _think_. They couldn't. Their tiny brains just weren't equipped for that level of- it just wasn't possible. How could something that was so inhuman, lived in the wild, ate things like grass and bugs, and rolled in mud be that… that  ** _alive_**?

Zach started breathing rapidly. Everything came down to codes, he thought to himself. He could code the genome of any animal now and rest assured that it was just a computer program running, just like his Zachbots.

But somehow that initially comforting thought didn't quite pan out.

If it was just the genome, then why did humans have such a short one in comparison to stupid things like Okapi and freaking lizards!? Why didn't the Creature Power Suits have to rewire the Kratt's neural codes every time they changed to work properly with a different body? He knew THAT was because, basically, brains functioned the same way no matter what animal it was in. A brain was a brain.

No matter what form their bodies took on thanks to the Creature Power Suits Martin was still Martin and Chris was still Chris. It didn't matter if they were technically animals…

_It didn't matter!_

By the time the Zachbots put Zach in his now righted chair his eyes were wild. He had a hand over his chest and was consciously trying to keep his heart from beating out of his chest. He looked like he'd just seen a demon.

He probably had. That was what happened when you look inside yourself too long. Everybody had one, but some were bigger than others.

"I need a drink," he muttered. A Zachbot held out a glass of water, but Zach waved it off and ordered something stronger. And a powerful sleeping pill.

He desperately hoped this nagging feeling would go away by morning.


	6. Just People

**Chapter 6: Just People**

* * *

**Week 3 - Continued**

* * *

 

"The human mind isn't a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That doesn't make them strong or weak people, or good or bad people. It just makes them people."

~ Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

* * *

 

**Day 16**

Zach finished making the programs for the requested discs for the Animal Escape Artists Competition just in time for it to begin the following morning. He had worked all day and night on them without complaint, stubbornly remaining bent over the console the entire time aside from necessary things like eating and heeding his bladder's demands he empty it from time to time. It was a small miracle it had been a success at all. He had steadfastly refused to ask for more time as Chris suggested due to knowing Aviva never did, and trying to prove he could at least match her if not surpass her. Nobody would verbally admit he had succeeded, but that didn't matter. Zach knew it and that was good enough for him.

Nothing else of consequence happened that day, at least not anything that Zach himself saw. He was too busy. Everyone, including Zach, was grateful for this. It kept their interaction to a minimum.

It wasn't until the morning of the next day that he began actually burning the discs.

**Day 17**

"I don't understand why you're having this competition anyway," Zach drawled while he finished proof-reading the program for one of Martin's discs. The dark circles under his eyes were deeper than usual and he looked dead-tired, but he had a smug air about him that surpassed his fatigue. It was the morning of the competition, using 'morning' loosely since it was still long before dawn and Zach didn't count it the next day until the sun was up. Not for the first time Zach lamented working around so many insufferable  **morning people**. The Kratt brothers were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and waiting for their discs, Koki was already up preparing, and Jimmy was making sure they were in the right place, had a good breakfast, and currently weaning Zach off the caffeine that had been fueling him up until now.

Zach had already sworn he was going to sleep through the actual competition and nobody had argued with him. "What color did you want for this one?"

"Uh… orange," Martin said and frowned as Zach put a teal disc in. "You asked just so you could put the wrong one in, didn't you?"

"Yes I did," the pale man said in a chipper tone.

Chris shook his head and shuffled his completed discs absentmindedly. There were an inordinate number of blue discs and the newly created black ones that Zach had made recently, but he hadn't let it faze him. Much. "What don't you get about the competition? It's to figure out what animals are the best escape artists. That's even what we're calling it. How is that hard to understand?"

Zach rested his chin in his palm while he watched the progress bar for the coding creature power disc and made a show of being very bored. "It isn't a logically tenable contest. If you want to know what animals are the best escape artists you can't use humans to demonstrate that. You'd have to use the animals themselves and have  _them_  compete against each other in various environments."

Martin glared. "That'd be cruel."

Zach rolled his eyes. "I won't argue that with a Kratt, and it wasn't my point anyway."

"Well, what  _is_  your point?" Chris asked tightly. "Is it because these aren't the actual animal abilities, just simulations of them?"

"No," Zach sighed. "It's because you have a  _human mind_. Animal abilities are used in vastly different ways even if two different  _animals_ happen to have the same one, so how can you expect the contest to have any real bearing on actual research when your test subjects are  _humans_  with animal abilities? You'll be using those powers in ways the animals would never be able to think of and neglecting the instinctive uses while your own human instincts interfere with whatever impulse the actual animals would have had, which renders the results pretty much useless. All you'll actually be testing is 'How Over-Competitive Kratt Brothers Comically Miss the Point of Their Own Research and Play with Animal Powers'." He paused to take out the written disc and handed it to Martin. "Color?" he asked again.

"Red," Martin said. It was a color he didn't want and he'd only said it in the hopes of hitting a one to nine chance of getting the one he actually wanted. Predictably Zach put the requested color in this time while Martin spluttered indignantly at him.

"Stop trying to outsmart him," Koki drawled from her station. "You're just making it worse."

Martin sighed dramatically and gave up, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.

"Don't you ever stop thinking about the world like it's a huge bar-graph and just have fun with what you're doing?" Chris asked dryly. "We may not find out exactly what we were after but there's always something interesting and new we discover about animals by trying at all."

Zach shrugged. "I guess that makes sense. I get the same thing with technology. I once found out how to make a really effective virus by trying to fix a random glitch that'd occurred while programming a Zachbot. It turned out to be a real monster-"

Everyone glared at him.

"Same basic concept," he defended harshly. "Am I wrong?"

"No, we just didn't like your reference," Koki stated.

Zach made a little noise of unconcern and went back to what he was doing. "Oh well. I guess this contest still makes more sense than a Time Machine that requires you jump on it to get to the portal. I'm starting to wonder if Aviva did that on purpose or if she just couldn't figure out how to get the actual portal in a better position and compensated in an incredibly stupid way."

"I didn't think it was stupid," Aviva said angrily.

Zach startled and leapt behind his chair. "What- how did-?"

"It was FUN," she continued from the screen. "It'd do you a world of good to learn what fun is, Varmitech."

Zach stopped stammering when Chris laughed and figured out that she must have called while he was talking and Chris had answered it without telling him. Zach got back in his chair and tried, unsuccessfully, to pretend that hadn't happened. "So which was it?"

Aviva shrugged. "I couldn't get the portal to appear in the right place. When I tried to make it generate vertically instead of horizontally it kept showing up several thousand miles to the side of the actual time machine out in space, and when I tried to put it in a position that would let us sort of fall into it instead of trying to leap up from below it I could never get it to stay open; it kept collapsing in on itself. Twelve feet above the actual machine pointing downward was the only place it'd appear where we could reach it, remain stable, and function properly."

"And the trampoline?" Zach drawled. "Why not use an escalator or something?"

"Because trampolines are fun," she smiled smugly. "And I figured if nature was going to be funny I'd do it too."

Zach opened his mouth to argue about how stupid that was, then what she'd told him clicked into place in his head and realization hit him like a truck. "Wait. When the portal appeared so far away, but stable, was it at roughly a forty-five degree angle to your location?"

"Well… yeah. Why?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Nature wasn't trying to be _funny_ , you ditz. Your portal was pointing directly toward the strongest and closest gravitational well in order to reach stability. Earth's core.  **Duh.**  No matter where you were respectively it would always point 'down'. Which is also why trying to make it appear vertically made it shoot out so far; it was at the closest point above the surface where it would still be able to point 'down' from there, wasn't it?"

Aviva's jaw nearly dropped but she caught herself just in time to exchange that expression for a frustrated growl. "AAAAGH! Why didn't  ** _I_** think of that!?" she demanded of herself wretchedly before smacking her forehead with a closed fist three times.

"I believe I already called you a ditz," Zach offered helpfully.

"How did  _you_  think of that?" Chris asked Zach, sounding impressed.

Zach shrugged. "Sometimes you're just too close to the problem too see the solution."

Aviva frowned. "If you're admitting that much then how am I still a ditz?"

"Because you were too proud to ask for an outside perspective and just accepted it as a quirk of cosmic humor," he replied flatly. "When you're competitive to the point of consciously fabricating a personality to universal constants rather than asking someone for help:  _that is a problem_."

Zach switched another disc in, this time coding a black one. He hadn't made a blue one for the water-bug yet. Martin pretended to strangle Zach from behind, which made Aviva smile reluctantly.

"Okay, you've got a point," she sighed.

"And that's the last one," Zach said triumphantly. "I trust you can at least take it out of the console without breaking it?"

"Yes," Martin drawled flatly.

Zach stood and stretched. "I'm going to bed. Do NOT wake me up to tell me who won. I already know."

Martin snorted. "How? Did you rig the discs?"

Zach grinned. "No. That  _human minds_  thing will be the deciding factor. Honestly the powers don't matter as much as you might think."

"Care to wager on that?" Koki suggested.

"Ooh! Martin!" Jimmy claimed from the cockpit.

"Chris," Koki said to herself.

"Martin," Aviva chimed in. Koki got a notepad and started writing the bets down.

Zach regarded them warily. "What do the winners get?"

Koki kept writing. "Usually just the bragging rights, but we can actually play for something solid this time. Shall we say the losers buy ice cream for the whole team?"

Aviva thought. "Eh… that's not good enough. I'm on a budget anyway. This hospital bill is going to be huge."

Zach smirked. "Losers have to work for  _me_  for three weeks."

" **No** ," was the unanimous reply.

Martin stood up. "Okay, losers have to wash and wax Zach's jet."

Jimmy snorted. "Who does Zach get the benefit?"

"Because," Martin said sensibly, "Zach deserves it for getting the discs made on time. Even if he didn't make me any blue ones."

Chris chimed in. "And if his guess is wrong he'll have to help with the penalty anyway, without the Zachbots helping."

"That's not fair…" Zach mumbled morosely, but at least he'd just be washing his own jet and not doing a dirty job for the Kratts.

"Good point," Koki agreed. "Deal."

The others quickly agreed and each brother voted for himself. Zach rolled his eyes at them and wrote a name on a little slip of paper, then handed it to Koki. "Don't open that until after the competition."

Zach then retreated to his jet where he slept the day away, dead to the world because of another sleeping pill. He was still trying to shake off that thought that would not stop nagging at him, and he had given up on trying to reason it away. It was something he'd have to analyze.

His vote for Chris turned out to be correct. This predictably frustrated them all (aside from Aviva, who was not required to perform the penalty). Jimmy and Martin finished the work while Zach was asleep so he wouldn't get to watch them do it.

Aviva surreptitiously looked over his coding on her laptop and tried very hard to find mischief that would have handicapped Martin. She didn't find one.

She DID, however, find Zach's online catalogue and browsed his animal-free options. Just because she knew it would annoy him; she ordered one.

**Day 18**

Sleeping the previous day away meant that Zach had woken up at three in the morning with enough energy to devote to any task that lay ahead of him. The fact that his jet was spotless and he'd got to watch Blue Boy and Jimmy fulfill their penalty on his security video only made his good mood better. After finishing the to-do list long ago, finishing with the discs for the Kratt's stupid competition, and having nothing pressing to do in his own cue that he was legally allowed to do whilst under the current contract with the Kratts; he'd been left with few options.

Since there wasn't anything Zach was required to do he'd decided to simultaneously be helpful and annoy Aviva as much as possible. His legal department had left a text to alert him of her order from last night, as she was blacklisted from purchasing anything from him and he was to be informed of any rejected orders, and really wanted to punish her somehow for discovering he had taken her advice. Zach couldn't' exactly stop doing it either, because those particular items had been selling really well and he was getting requests for more like them. Damn it.

So he'd done the worst he could think of while technically still helping the Kratts, not breaking the rules, and using his knowledge of Things that Annoy Aviva.

He wasted massive amounts of paper making hard copies of her inventions' schematics. As it turned out he didn't even have to call her to report the deed – she called to gloat/ask why her order had been rejected and caught him doing it.

Zach held up quite a large book he'd made from the archives so that Aviva could see it clearly over the video feed. For him this was a bit of an effort as it weighed about twenty pounds and the edge was grinding into his palm because he'd not judged the way to hold it properly before deciding to display it, but it was well worth it for the shocked expression Aviva rewarded him with.

It was bound in black with large, evil-looking pointy red lettering on the cover, which he'd thought a nice touch on his part to indicate he'd made the actual book despite Aviva's name being on the contents. He grinned viciously and smugly absorbed the ranting about how much paper (and thus, trees) he'd wasted by printing the blueprints out rather than just having electronic copies. Zach's enjoyment of the situation only gained intensity when he told her that he had made a backup of each book as well, as that was only the intelligent thing to do, and that in order to properly keep track of her admittedly impressive number of inventions he'd had to print fifteen books of similar size. She was a prolific inventor.

Most everything Aviva yelled at him after that was in Spanish. It had been so long since he'd made her mad enough to forget what language he was supposed to yell at him in, and grinned broadly.

"You're so inconsiderate." Zach scolded her, ticking a finger back and forth. "People are sleeping."

 _"Rata derrochador rencorosa!"_  Aviva hissed darkly.

"Okay, I'm pretty sure I heard 'rat'," Zach mused to himself.

She opened her mouth to start again, realized he was guessing at a translation, and glowered instead. "I wish I could remember everything I just said so I could repeat it in English!"

"It's okay. I was recording it."

"Good!"

Zach snorted. "Why are you so mad about it anyway? Having a hard copy of your files is only going to make it easier to get everything back up and running if there's a disaster of some kind. Keep one of them at your parent's house in a safe. That way if you lose the electronic files or even the entire Tortuga – which is likely considering how often you Kratts manage to break things – then you don't lose a lifetime of work."

"Stop being reasonable when I'm mad at you!" she snapped irately.

"And I no longer regret our breakup," he stated flatly. "I pity Martin. Why he decided to put up with you is beyond me."

"Martin?"

Aviva went from fury to shock as she focused her attention behind Zach, and Zach turned the chair to peer behind him at Koki.

After a long pause Zach broke the silence first. "It's five a.m.!  _Don't you people ever **sleep**!?_ "

Koki ignored him and faced Aviva. "I thought you were after Chris?"

Aviva hesitated. "No, I'm dating Martin."

"Does Chris know this?" Koki demanded. "Because he's been talking about you for months. It's mean to lead him on if you're not interested! He said you kissed him and everything!"

Aviva whined. "I didn't do it on purpose!"

"How could you  _accidentally_  kiss the wrong guy?" Koki asked a bit more calmly.

Zach muttered, "It helps if you can see who it is at the time."

Zach winced under Aviva's huge, vicious glare. She'd even moved closer to the camera so that her face would take up the entire video. "You-"

"I didn't tell her! She overheard! So you can't be mad because I didn't break my promise!" he argued weakly.

"How does HE know about it and not ME!?" Koki continued. "And you'd better tell Chris! How long have you been dating Martin anyway?"

Aviva groaned and gave up. "Since they went to their parents' house to visit. I did go into town to get supplies then, but I made a stop back there to meet up with Martin."

"Oh,  _that's_  how you got so sick," Zach thought aloud. "You must have got two different strains at once from the Kratt family and another one out in town."

Koki smacked a hand over his mouth. "Hush up and let her talk." She let go when she turned back to the screen and missed the disgusted look Zach gave her hand as he wiped his mouth off. "Then what?"

"Martin…" Aviva said slowly.

Zach cringed back into his chair when the older Kratt, face like thunder, stepped up behind the chair and gave him a look that promised he'd be willing to pay Zach's medical bills in exchange for causing them. "Who started this?"

Koki rolled her eyes. "I did by walking in at the wrong time."

"Okay," Martin said, easily slipping back into his carefree attitude and moving away from a visibly shaken Zach. "It was an accident. I told Aviva to meet me in the storage closet for some alone time before she had to leave. Dad chose that moment to ask Chris to get something from there. I was late since I was asked to make coffee-"

Koki palmed her face and finished for him. "Chris was in the closet when Aviva got there and she turned off the lights before actually looking at who she was lovin' on?"

Aviva groaned again and hid her face in her hands. "No, the door was wide open and the hall light was on, so Chris didn't need the light in the closet on. It looked like an invitation to me because clearly Martin had left the door open for me. So when I shut the door it was too dark to see-"

"How did you not notice that 'Martin' was suddenly shorter?" Zach interjected.

"Good question," Koki agreed.

Martin sighed. "He was standing on a box to get something off a high shelf, so it was impossible to tell."

Aviva continued. "If that wasn't bad enough Martin opened the door on us a while later. He was too shocked to react and Chris just laughed and told me I should have locked the door. He thought I'd ambushed him on purpose and  _Martin_  being there was the accident. Luckily Martin figured out it was a mistake before he went on a warpath…"

Martin smiled at her. "I trust you. And Chris isn't the ambush type."

Koki sat down and blinked a few times. "Wow. And here Chris thought you were being shy about it, and told me and Jimmy. So you two were dealing with this whole Chris secret and your friends rooting for the wrong guy too."

"And Chris," Aviva pointed out. "I've been trying to figure out how to tell him, and I swear I've started the conversation three times now, but then he asks me out on dates and it's all I can do not to smack him for not  _listening._ "

Martin nodded. "I tried too, but I had to walk away before I did something stupid because he started talking like-"

"Like he won a contest?" Zach stated, as if he'd just realized Chris would do that. "He's treating his imagined relationship with Aviva like a victory against  _you_ ," he said to Martin.

Martin lifted a brow. "How do you know that?"

Zach shrugged. "He told me about the year-long silent treatment you guys went through. I get why he'd doing it over this, too."

Koki huffed. "Now I know why Martin won if Chris is treating you like a prize."

Zach snapped, feeling strangely defensive. "Hey. Maybe he doesn't see it that way. I don't think Chris is treating Aviva like a prize, he's posturing because, from his perspective, she chose him. You two aren't giving him enough credit just because you feel awkward about this whole thing."

Koki stood up. "Alright, when Zach Varmitech actually starts making good points I'm out. You two tell Chris what's really going on.  _Today._ "

Martin and Aviva muttered nondescript agreement while Zach motioned for his Zachbots to gather the books he'd made and put them away. "Let me know when the storm blows over," he called back as he left. "Don't bother me unless you actually have something for me to do. I've worked myself out of work."

It turned out to be very fortunate that Zach had chosen to shelter from the storm.

Hours later Zach was sipping tea, drawing up plans for whatever came into his head since he had the time. He was particularly proud of the fermentation chamber and enzymes that replicated the process that created Kopi Luwak, a vile but popular form of coffee fermentation that required it first be eaten, and thus excreted, by a critter called a Civet. Zach had tried it once because it was expensive and rare (thus, he had thought, better) but after discovering how it was actually made he'd had a panic attack and refused all coffee for a week.

That hadn't ended well. Zach was pretty sure his brain chemistry required coffee in order to function.

He had to admit after some thought on the matter that he'd actually  _liked_  the coffee. It just grossed him out when he was told how it was fermented. The chemistry had taken a while to work out since it wasn't a particular skill of his, but after weeks of simulating the 'original' environment that fermented the beans he had a method of producing Kopi Luwak that would result in coffee that had the same flavor and benefits… without the knowledge you were drinking something that a weasel had shat.

He realized this would have the side-effect of reducing the need for using the actual animals, which would likely earn him thanks from the Kratts and animal advocacy groups (both of which had by now noticed his 'animal-free' options. Supply and demand was causing a bit of trouble with the critters and the special beans that weren't being collected from the wild were made by keeping civets in cages and force-feeding them beans to make it. It was sort of sad. Especially since the resulting beans were less good than the wild ones. The wild civets only ate the best of the best out there and those in the cages couldn't pick and choose, thus ruining half the reason the beans were so good in the first place.

Not that he cared. He was just doing this because he didn't want to drink poo-coffee even if it did have some special benefits. He'd have to set up a pretty strict quality-check for the berries used to make the beans, though…

It'd be a good publicity stunt. Now there'd be Varmitech coffee houses and Zach KNEW those were always profitable if you catered to the right audience. He might even make the logo a civet just to get tree-huggers to give him money for something he was mass-producing pretty cheap. Ha. It honestly amazed him that he didn't own a chain of coffee places already since he loved it so much. Oh well.

"Open the door, Varmitech!" This demand was followed by several loud bangs.

Zach jumped up and backed away from his door in reaction to the noise, which was thankfully locked. "Chris? Did you guys break something again?"

"Not yet!" Well, that tone was familiar.

"I'd prefer to remain in one piece, thanks," Zach retorted unsteadily. "Why are you mad at me anyway? I haven't done anything to tick you off in weeks."

"You KNEW Martin was dating Aviva, didn't you!?"

Zach winced from his side of the door. "Oh,  **that** finally came out. I'm surprised they actually told you. Yeah, I knew. I figured it out, though. Nobody  _told me_."

"You should have told  _me_!" Chris shouted.

"No,  **THEY**  should have told you.  **I**  was sworn to secrecy!"

"You've never kept a promise to any of us before, so why do it  _now_?"

Zach snorted. "Because it wasn't so much a promise as an act of self-preservation. Aviva heavily implied your ox-strong brother would turn me into a human pretzel if I so much as hinted at it."

Chris growled. "Well, now  _I'm_  going to do that to you anyway, so what's the difference?"

"He's not as easily reasoned with as you are," Zach said sensibly. "I figured angering the smart brother was less likely to result in blunt-force trauma. Clearly I was wrong."

Zach had begun to count down to the inevitable moment when Chris would calm down. He had initially considered phrasing that last bit in a way that implied Martin was flat-out dumber than Chris was, but no matter how mad they were at each other the Kratts were still insanely defensive of family, so it seemed like a bad idea. Normally Zach would have been annoyed by the fact that he was being forced to exercise relatively polite language, but it was always good policy not to further upset someone that already wanted to thrash him.

Carefully, Zach put his drawing pad down and brought up Chris's image on a monitor screen. He looked pretty murderous.

The only thing Zach had to figure out now was if Chris hadn't brought his Creature Power Suit because he had  _forgotten it_  or had left it intentionally to prevent causing more damage than he actually intended. Both were equally likely with Chris. A good twenty seconds went by during which Chris seethed silently on the other end of the door and Zach waited for the tension in the air to lower to a mere simmer.

Then, since he knew Chris had very unwisely leaned his head on the door to rest after his outburst, Zach swung his foot back and kicked the door as hard as he could.

Chris swore and leapt backward, rubbing his forehead. "What did you do that for!?"

Zach stated smugly, though his foot stung now. "I was hoping it would jump-start your brain's ability to use logic again. Did it work?"

"Yes; in that now I have a  _legitimate_  reason to hit you once I get in there."

"Hm," Zach mused. "But how much?"

Chris groaned and sat down on the porch, sulking. "Less than I was prepared to when I got here."

"Worked, then, didn't it?"

"Will you open the door now?"

Zach rolled his eyes. "Not until you promise not to hit me."

"Not happening," Chris snapped.

"Not  _opening_ ," Zach answered in turn.

There followed the sort of silence that almost radiated heat because of how much thinking was going on in it. It felt heavy.

"Why didn't they just tell me?" Chris asked tiredly, to no one in particular. He sat down on the edge of the porch dejectedly. "I would have understood."

"Not immediately." Zach made a face and mentally prepared himself for a bit of counselling which, while entirely not his responsibility as a determined non-friend, might at least get the Kratt off his case. "You would have had a fit about it the same way you are now. But then you wouldn't have the advantage of a few month's distance to look at the situation more objectively and could have done something stupid… er."

Chris put his hands over his face and groaned. "Maybe."

"What'd you do to Martin?" Zach asked. No answer. "Look at it this way: You're not the only one here that's been dumped by Aviva. At least she was being **nice**  about it with you. Not  _intelligently_ , but she was trying to be considerate."

Chris sat up a little straighter, suddenly feeling some common ground in the conversation, which made Zach's opinion on the matter marginally more interesting. "Oh yeah? What'd she say to you?"

"Her exact words were,  _'I am NOT your girlfriend, Varmitech. I'm just the first girl that was stupid enough to climb into your yacht',_ " he repeated verbatim to the acidic voice echoing in his head. He remembered the day she had too. He'd JUST started making a good profit on his first inventions and invited her over to share his first big present to himself. He hadn't expected her to help with the christening, though… that part had surprised him. Damn his excellent memory. Aviva was a huge loss. Zach really did empathize with Chris on this one.

Chris gaped and turned toward the camera at last. "That doesn't sound like Aviva! What'd you do to make her that mad? Did you cheat or something?"

"NO!" Zach snapped, clearly offended by that accusation.

"What then?"

Zach grumbled. His response was almost inaudible. "I lost some animals testing my prototype mind-control chips."

Chris's astonished look vanished immediately and he glared. "Ah," he said flatly. "That'd do it. 'Lost' meaning you killed them,. How many is 'some'?"

"Not what we're talking about, Chris."

"Right. I probably don't want to know anyway."

No you don't, Zach thought. And now that stupid 'guilt' thing was back again. Great.

Chris read that silence masterfully. "Were they at least animals she didn't know?"

Zack was glad Chris couldn't actually see him because he had just visibly squirmed. "She knew one of them. It was a duck she'd feed what was left of her toast to while we were fishing sometimes."

"Why on Earth would you try something like that on an animal Aviva  _knew_?" Chris demanded angrily. "It sounds like you were  **trying**  to upset her."

Zach sighed and sat down by the door, sulking. "Contrary to what you Wild Rats might think, I never would have used one of Aviva's pet critters in that test unless I was absolutely positive it would work. I thought it'd be a creative gift, you know? She used to go on about how it'd be interesting to know what animals thought about, if it was possible to directly communicate, so I tried to create something that would let her do that."

Chris sat on his side of the door because he'd heard Zach's voice move. Both could still be heard clearly – the camera was letting Zach see Chris and Chris could hear Zach over the intercom. But he could still hear Zach through the door a little bit too. "I thought you said it was a mind- _control_  prototype, not a mind- _reading_  prototype."

"You don't always wind up with what you were actually trying to do with inventing. That's the hard part about it: everything's new so you have no basis for comparison and you're always flying blind. I was seventeen and didn't have a good enough understanding of neural pathways when I made the first chips. I thought I knew what they would look like and that admittedly arrogant assumption tainted my research. When I programmed the chips I had them look for familiar synapse patterns, meaning patterns I'd predicted, instead of just reading what was already there." Zach shook his head and swallowed. "There was a flaw I hadn't noticed in the programming and when the chips didn't find the predicted patterns it tried to  _make them_  instead."

Chris shuddered. "What happened to the animals?"

"Really?" Zach whined.

"Just tell me. It'll probably bother me even more if you leave it up to my imagination," Chris said bluntly.

Zach groaned, but answered. "It wasn't graphic or anything. The chips interfered with the signals travelling from the brain to… everything else. It was instantaneous communication failure. They just… shut off."

They were both silent for a while so that Chris could process this. Then, "Living things aren't machines, Zach. They don't just 'shut off'."

"When you work with both as closely as I do that line becomes very blurred very fast," he said quietly. "Even Aviva outright stated to me that animals are like molecular computers. When you can literally program DNA into a machine that turns humans into animals there's  **no way**  to stop that association from forming. The brain is the central processor, which connects to everything else, and each organ is a specific component that works on its own specific tasks in pre-programmed ways. That's a computer."

Chris couldn't argue that because he honestly didn't know if it was right or not. In order to confirm or refute it he'd have to speak to Aviva and he just wasn't going to be able to do that for a while. Instead he swallowed the sort of inner turmoil one gets when hearing about a botched medical study on the news that winds up in a waste of life and tried to focus on the actual subject of their conversation.

"So let me get this straight," he said slowly. "You accidentally invented the basis for your mind-control technology while actually attempting to make Aviva an animal/human translator as a present?"

"That's simplified, but yes," Zach grumbled.

Chris mulled this over. It was actually making him feel better. It probably wasn't the best way to improve his mood, or the healthiest, but it was working. "Why did you continue to develop that technology after it made Aviva break up with you?"

"Because the damage was already  _done_. She wasn't going to take me back, or let me forget it,  _ever_ , and I had actually made a revolutionary discovery. It made no sense to ignore that discovery when it had so many practical applications," he explained. "I must have apologized a hundred times, but she never answered me. So I gave up and moved on with my life. The worst thing anyone can do in a relationship is base your entire life on the other person. It's unfair to you, because you're stifling your own potential in favor of holding up someone else, and it's not fair to them either because you become a burden on them and fail to live up to the potential they saw in you in the first place." Zach stood up and faced the monitor again. "And that's about all the 'helping' I can handle today. Shoo."

"Thanks, Zach. You're surprisingly good company when you're not being evil," Chris admitted. "Sorry I came here to take all this out on you. That wasn't fair."

"No. It wasn't. Will you leave now?" Zach whined. "I've got my own work to catch up on after spending so long trapped in Krattmandu every day."

"Sure." Chris smiled. "See you later, I hope-"

Zach caught himself just before responding to that snidely. "Wait, what do you mean 'later'? Not 'tomorrow'?"

"I don't think it's a good idea for me to stay with the group just yet," Chris admitted. "I don't want to make all this worse by being spiteful when I don't mean to be."

"Where're you going?"

"Not sure yet."

Zach did an excellent imitation of Aviva punching herself on the forehead until the anger was too dazed to change her behavior, though Zach was trying to quash empathy instead.

He failed.

The silence alerted Chris to a change in atmosphere and he leaned back on the door curiously. "Zach?" The door was suddenly no longer there to support him anymore and Chris fell backward with a startled yelp onto the floor of the inside. He raised a brow at Zach, who was standing there looking down at him blandly with the door open.

"Well?" In or out?" Zach demanded tersely after a moment of stunned inaction from the younger Kratt.

Chris stood up and walked into the jet, only flinching a little when Zach slammed the door behind him. "Are you actually inviting me to stay?"

Zach snorted. "If the team is going to be down one Kratt due to a hissy-fit after a love triangle collapsed, then I won't actually get much done on the tail-end of my contract."

Chris smiled weakly. "Because it's not like you're sympathizing with my situation or anything. Zach Varmitech doesn't  _have_  friends."

"None whatsoever," Zach snapped, ignoring Chris's sarcasm completely. "Your welcome will be officially retracted if you can't manage to continue  _working_  effectively, even if you aren't on speaking terms with the others on a  _personal_  level. Leave your relationship problems outside business hours."

Chris sighed. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Fine." As he walked back to his console to continue working, Zach snapped his fingers at the Zachbot responsible for his meals. "Two for dinner," he commanded simply.

Chris stepped backward when the bot approached and requested his wine selection. To his own surprise as well as Zach's he actually provided one. After some hesitation he asked a Zachbot to go and get his camping bags from the compartment he shared with Martin in the Tortuga. Fortunately Zach didn't get angry when it did something it was asked rather than following Chris's orders.

Why did they keep obeying him, anyway?


	7. Troubles and Obstacles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note:Originally in Chapter 1 I said the Kratt brothers went home for 'the holidays', which suggested winter and the usual North American flu season, and then had them watch a freaking summertime meteor shower a mere number of weeks later. This is a HUGE timing error and I'm surprised nobody called bullshit on me in the reviews. I wish they had. I like to be informed of my errors so I can fix them if possible – constructive criticism is always welcome, which is why I explain things in the notes of chapters if I know it's a bit 'iffy' logic-wise (and occasionally re-read previous chapters to see if I can catch anything).
> 
> Since I really want to keep the meteor shower scene (the Perseid Shower peaks around mid-August) I'm changing the holidays thing. Luckily a different official event in the Kratt-Verse coincides with the proposed timing of their visit home: Chris's birthday (July 19th ) assuming the Kratts really are starring themselves in the cartoon. I have changed that little detail in Chapter 1 to make the timeline more feasible. This also means that the drama with Chris occurred on his birthday, which just makes the whole thing much worse than initially planned. Whoops. Sorry, Chris.
> 
> This change places them well outside of 'flu season' as far as North America is concerned, which I will logic away by the fact that they travel a lot and in many areas of the world 'flu season' is year-round. These places include a good portion of Mexico, South America, Africa, Northern Australia, and basically anywhere along the Equator. If they travel further south than that, 'flu season' is exactly opposite to what it is in most of the northern hemisphere. They could have gotten the flu anywhere, anytime, anyway. And this only makes it more likely that Aviva got a really bad or even doubled-up case of it, which leads to her pneumonia.

**Chapter 7: Troubles and Obstacles**

* * *

 

 

"All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you." ~Walt Disney

* * *

 

**Day 19**

"This is  _awesome_ ," Chris said loud enough to disturb the paler man dozing happily on the other side of the room.

"Two things, Chris:  **Shut. Up.** " Zach still had his face mask on to block out the light. Unfortunately it didn't work on sound and he regretted, fiercely,  _inviting_  a morning person back into his area after he'd finally managed to get rid of them. Aside from Jimmy these people woke up at hours that Zach never saw unless absolutely vital or he'd been up the whole night. He didn't even bother looking at the clock because he could just feel that it was too early. This was mostly because he couldn't smell his Zachbots making coffee yet and they were set on a timetable.

At least Chris wasn't actively moping at the moment, which was a small miracle.

The previous night had consisted of an awkward silent dinner during which Chris had several glasses of wine and stared morosely out at the Tortuga through the jet's windshield. Zach had left him alone unless spoken to directly in a way that required a response. He kept doodling on his data pad and mostly ignored him except to give him permission to use whatever he needed so long as he stayed off the computer. Both ignored the calls on their Creature Pod and phone respectively, though Zach covertly answered a text message just to let them know where Chris actually was so they'd stop inundating him with voicemails, most of which he deleted without listening to them.

Chris had been surprised and annoyed to learn that Zach actually  _did_  have a spare bed in his jet. The Zachbots set up an air mattress for him in the space between the foot of the main bed and the wall separating that space from the control room. It was meant specifically for that space given the fit and maintained walking paths between both beds, the bathroom, and exit. When Chris demanded to know why Zach hadn't let any of the Kratts team use it before (forcing them to use sleeping bags or otherwise improvise) he had simply said that it was a GUEST bed and unwelcome supervision didn't count as guests. Chris had retorted that while that was a semi-sort-of-reasonable excuse he was still going to be mad about it. Zach said 'good' and they went to sleep furious with each other.

All around it was perfectly normal Kratt/Varmitech interaction, really.

Chris's temper had apparently waned before morning. Zach's had not and it only got worse when he was woken early.

"What are you  _doing_?" Zach grumbled without even looking. A soft glow shone just under the flaps of his night mask and aggravated him immensely. He wore it in the first place because one blue LED the size of a punctuation mark in the room became an eye-searing torture device in the sort of pitch black Zach liked to sleep in, and he was constantly surrounded by blinking electronics. The mask was  **essential** or he'd never sleep. He rolled himself over to hide from the light under the blanket but he could still  _feel_  the light on his skin. "And turn off the lights," he demanded.

"It's not the light." Chris answer was simple. "I'm looking at your data pad."

"Don't do that," Zach drawled. He was annoyed but couldn't bring himself to care enough to move.

"You said I couldn't use your computer. This isn't your computer," Chris pointed out.

"Ah, technicality-based logic being used to look at things you're not supposed to. I'm almost proud of you, Chris" Zach snickered.

Chris rolled his eyes. "Shut up. Do you have  _any idea_  how many civets this could save?"

Zach groaned. He'd completely forgotten about his unintentionally friendlier inventions. "I **don't care** ; I just want better coffee that hasn't been 'processed' by some icky varmint's digestive tract!"

There followed a blessed silence for a few minutes while Chris continued to browse through the files. Then; "Is that a submarine?"

Zach growled morosely from underneath his pillow, which was followed by profane muttering, some choice threats to both Kratts and various creatures he knew they particularly liked, and an impressive if badly pronounced repeat of what Aviva had shouted at him in Spanish; none of which Chris actually heard because it was muffled by bedding.

Chris blinked and looked up. "Huh?"

Zach sat up and yanked off his night mask. "I would throw this at you but you're holding something fragile!" Zach hissed menacingly as he brandished the pillow.

"You'd do it anyway if it was fragile and  _mine_ ," Chris stated.

"Absolutely." Since Zach usually held up his pillow when he wanted it fluffed a Zachbot snatched it from him and began to do so. "Hey! I didn't mean-! Ugh."

Another Zachbot stopped beside Chris and handed him a plate that he must have ordered while Zach was attempting to regain blissful unconsciousness. The Tech mogul's eye twitched. The only reason he hadn't instructed the Zachbots to stop listening to Chris was because Zach would then have to  _relay his requests_ like a parrot and that would be too much for his patience to handle.

"You modelled this after the Megalodon, right?" the younger Kratt asked. He took a bite out of the lightly fried eggs on his plate while the other man entertained the thought of stabbing his 'guest' with the fork. Of course that would require getting out of the bed and he really didn't want to yet.

Zach gave up and flopped onto his back to pout with his right arm shielding his eyes from the light. "Yes I did," he finally answered. "That's what I was drawing in the woods the other day when you made me break my glasses."

Chris moved to Zach's bed and sat down beside him, holding out the data pad with one hand while he kept the plate in the other. "It's a good size, but some think it might have been even bigger than this. Where'd you get the idea?"

Zach leaned away from him and glared. "How old are you?  _No food on the bed._ "

"Sure," Chris agreed vaguely. He stood up with the plate but didn't actually move away.

Zach whined. "You're not going to let me sleep are you?" Chris smiled indulgently and held out the plate. Zach sighed, sat up and took a piece of toast. "You are a terrible guest."

"We're supposed to be at the Tortuga to work in a couple of hours. I thought eating here would be better. And I wanted to make sure we both had enough time to shower." Chris explained. Translated that meant he didn't want to spend any more time around the others than he absolutely had to, so Zach accepted it wordlessly. "What else are you working on? Can I see?"

Zach grunted testily around the bit of toast in his mouth and flicked his free fingers over the screen to pull up some other things. Of course he avoided anything Chris might get upset over, like the hoard of controlled bats he planned on using to keep his nighttime parties mosquito-free without those smelly candles everywhere. He surprised even himself with the amount of animal-free things he'd been jotting down over the past weeks, though. Like it or not this job had given him lots of inspiration. He'd get a lot of eco-geeks buying his products soon enough if he had his way; it was apparently a very lucrative niche in the market that he hadn't exploited yet and he planned to exploit the hell out of it.

Chris beamed at him. "Vertical Hydroponic Farms?"

"Aeroponic," Zach corrected. "Instead of water you use a fine mist saturated with the nutrients the plants need. If I make everything but the plants themselves invisible by the same process I used to make my cloak there won't be anything to block the sunlight, even water, saving a lot of space. I can build  _up_  and not  _out_ , and not have to pay for as much land or electricity." Zach yawned and stretched. "Robots can do the actual farming, saving labor costs, too. It'll make growing things a lot less expensive and reduce how much I'd have to spend on water. Aeroponic systems grow bigger plants and more varieties of plants than Hydroponic systems too. I'll have conventional farming beat-"

"And make it easy to produce lots of good-quality produce at lower prices. More people could afford-"

"Who said I was  _lowering the prices_?" Zach snapped, stealing another piece of toast. "I'm running a business, not a charity."

Chris ignored him. "Would the plants grow if the roots are in the light like that? How did you even get the idea?"

"Koki had it up in another window when she had me read about venoms and other things at her station. I don't' know if it'll work," he said blandly. "That pad is just where I keep whatever ideas hit me and I go back to them later. Research and development has to wait until I have more time."

Chris flipped the image to the next project and put the plate down on the nightstand so he could sit on the bed again. "What's this one?"

"Stupid. I must have been in caffeine withdrawal," he muttered. "Which was your fault.  _Thanks_ ," he added acidly.

Chris gave him a suspicious look. "You promised not to steal anything."

"Do you  _see_  any circuitry in this plan?" Zach challenged. "It's just another design concept for the Creature Power Suits. One that  _doesn't_  make you guys look like cutesy cartoon characters. I was bored and you look ridiculous, so while I was fixing  _everything else_ …" he trailed off because Chris was still looking at the image in interest. "I'm not a clothes designer, okay?" he snapped self-consciously. "I told you it was stupid."

Eventually his lip curled up slightly. "It's… predatory. I'll give you that."

"You like the claws on the paw print, don't you?" Zach asked with a bit more confidence.

"Yeah. Which wildcat is that print from?"

"Jaguar. Why?"

Chris hesitated, but figured it'd be an interesting thing to have in the event his current suit vest needed repairing. "Will you make it?"

Zach hummed thoughtfully. "I don't sew, but I'll have a Zachbot put it together. You'll have to give me your size. Should I make one for Martin too"

"Nah," Chris said smugly. "If he wants one he can beg you for one later."

"Outside this contract he'll have to pay for it," Zach pointed out. "Any chance you'll wear red?"

"No."

"You look good in it," Zach argued. "Remember?"

Chris rolled his eyes. "That wasn't  _me_ , it was a hologram."

"So?" Zach asked, completely devoid of shame over the event. "Martin couldn't tell it wasn't you, so the hologram was accurate."

"Zach-" Chris began, then changed his mind. He had no right to argue wearing only certain colors with someone who did the same thing without offering a compromise. "I'll wear red only if you wear green."

Zach startled. "How is that fair?"

"You have green eyes, so maybe it'll work."

"No! The best colors for green eyes are black, browns, and purple; green would just draw attention away from my eyes!" Chris raised a brow and stared incredulously at him. Zach flushed and palmed his face. "I spent  _way_  too much time with Donita last year..."

"Yeah, that was weird. She  _does_ have a tendency to tell people how to dress and why in excruciating detail, though."

"That never happened."

"Nope." Chris agreed. "You mind if I jump in the shower first?"

"Go ahead," Zach said. "I need coffee anyway."

After Chris had shut the bathroom door behind him Zach went out to the control room and turned on his favorite show. He'd really missed it while he was being 'supervised'. Few things were quite as much fun as watching this. It was like a never-ending comedy skit.

Tortuga HQ appeared on his screen and he snickered as he listened to them whine about Chris, wonder if either of the missing members would even be there that day, and rearrange the schedule in the event they didn't. In the background a Zachbot was cleaning things and was barely noticed. Zach wondered how much he could manipulate any residual habits the Kratts may have developed in tolerating his Zachbots without immediately tearing them apart. In a few days when he left he expected two things to occur: chores to pile up, and that he might be able to sneak a few bots past the Kratts defenses without them even noticing.

He spent a good fifteen minutes watching this and sipped his coffee. At around the second cup, though, things started to get interesting. He was so enthralled by the conversation he didn't even hear the bathroom door open.

* * *

 

"He's never  _left_ before," Martin said worriedly. He was sitting on the floor by Koki's station brooding, holding his creature pod, which he'd used to dial Chris several times to no avail before calling Aviva.. He hadn't slept much after the explanation, resulting argument, and winding up in the compartment he usually shared alone.

Aviva sighed from her side of the call. "At least he didn't go very far," she said encouragingly. "He's right next door with Zach. And I'll be back soon to help smooth things out. I hated to tell him over the phone, but Koki had a point. We took it too far and waited too long."

Martin winced. "Yeah."

"Why did Zach let him stay?" Koki wondered. "I'm not used to Varmitech being helpful. It's weird."

"I can think of three possibilities," Aviva said. "One: he's just doing it to keep us from being unproductive while his contract with us is still in effect. Two: he's empathizing with Chris's situation. I don't know a lot about Zach love life but I'm positive it isn't something he's particularly successful in. The last time I knew of his  _officially_  dating someone it was me and that was years ago. Three: he's getting involved because watching the fallout will provide him with some entertainment while he's still trapped over there."

"Uh, Aviva? One of those reasons require he actually  _care_  about how Chris feels," Koki pointed out.

"I haven't ruled that out yet." Aviva paused to think. "I remember him actually having the ability to care about people when we were friends for a little while. It wasn't a lot, but it helped keep him under control. We can't afford for him to relapse into his old behaviors this late in the game. I think we've succeeded somewhat but we're running out of time."

"But now he's watching us fall apart for a little while. That can't be helping," Martin muttered. "I mean, we'll work it out but not in three days. This isn't exactly the best example of how friends are supposed to interact."

"With any luck it's having the opposite effect," Aviva pointed out. "Trying to be friends with  _all of us_  at once might be too daunting of a challenge for Zach. Sorry, Martin but I think for the most part you just annoy him. He's been rivals with me for too long for that to change very quickly. And he clearly doesn't get along with Koki-"

"Nuh-uh," Koki agreed wholeheartedly. She was currenlty involved in specifically searching for weird and scary-looking animals to leave displayed on her screen when Zach would chance to see them.

"But Chris is usually the first one to try and make deals with Zach rather than fight him, and tends to be the one stepping in to keep the idiot from getting hurt when nature retaliates. Since Chris is essentially isolated from the group it'll be less overwhelming for Zach," she finished. "And if Zach keeps letting Chris stay with him, because I agree we're unlikely to solve this issue in three days, then they'll be socializing an awful lot. Of all of us Chris has the best chance of succeeding in breaking through Zach's barriers."

Koki turned in her chair and crossed her arms, looking at the tiny Aviva in Martin's Creature Pod searchingly. Behind her two spiders – the Goliath Birdeater and Giant Huntsman – were displayed prominently. "Why are you so obsessed with getting Zach to be your friend all of a sudden?"

"I'm wondering that too," Martin admitted. "Not that it's a bad idea, but why?"

Aviva looked pained. "He's getting better… or more accurately  **worse**. Haven't you noticed?"

"At what? Koki asked.

"At  _everything_ ," Aviva insisted. "His inventing is improving, his hacking is more difficult to detect and prevent, he's stealing and poaching with more successes than failures and that's because he's getting better at anticipating our movements and doing it when we're not there to stop him. Every year he manages to get past us and steal a few more animals for his products even if that's only because he's gotten smart enough to distract us and send out poachers to actually gather them while we're busy. We're still beating him for the most part but it's not as easy as it used to be, is it?"

"I've seen this in stories," Jimmy said suddenly.

Martin, Koki and Aviva jumped and yelled, then faced their Pilot with a unanimous "Don't DO that!"

"Uh… sorry. But I think the point Aviva is trying to make is that we need Zach to be our friend because he's getting too dangerous to let him be our enemy anymore," he said darkly.

"Right," Aviva said flatly. "I don't think I can keep up with him much longer. While I study animals part-time and invent part-time, he's inventing 24-7. If he keeps going in the direction he's been heading for a few more years Zach isn't going to be the same inept whining nuisance we're used to. He's getting meaner, less empathetic, and he's breaking more laws with less consequences. If we don't do  _something_  to stop that process eventually he's going to start beating us. Badly. And there won't be much we can do about it aside from legitimately getting violent with him."

Koki gawked, remembering the conversation they'd had during the meteor shower about Zach's actual level of intelligence. "What are we supposed to do about that?!"

Martin rubbed his forehead tiredly. "Hope Chris has more luck than we did. If he doesn't we're going to have to start getting more aggressive when we deal with Zach and I don't want to think about how that'll end."

* * *

 

At first Chris was livid when he realized Zach was watching his friends like they were his own little Truman Show. He doubted he would have even caught him if Zach hadn't underestimated how long it took normal people to shower compared to spoiled city-dwellers l that treated the event like a trip to the sauna. His vision actually blurred for a moment as he came up silently behind his rival and wondered how much trouble he'd get in if he just whacked the conniving little weasel on the back of the head.

Then he was stunned and stood listening to the conversation going on.

Yet  _another_  thing they hadn't been discussing with Chris, apparently. When did he become a third wheel to his entire team!? Sure Martin had said Koki and Jimmy weren't 'really involved' in the project they had going on with Zach, but at least Koki and Jimmy knew what the scheme actually was and why they were trying it. Chris hadn't been told. He'd just been asked not to antagonize their target too much.

Chris only had a few moments to feel sorry for himself being so far out of the loop before Zach made a strange, small noise in his throat and put his hands over his mouth.

"Um," Chris started lamely.

Zach whirled around in the chair and pinned Chris with frantic eyes. He hesitated for only a second before he lunged forward and grabbed Chris's shoulders tightly.

 _"Did you hear that!?"_  Zach demanded urgently and quietly at once.  _"You heard that, right!?"_

Torn between yelling at Zach for spying and admitting that this wasn't exactly fair to the pale man either, Chris winced. How would it feel to know the people that had been saying they wanted to be your friends were only doing it for their own sakes? "Yes. I'm sorry-" he began hesitantly.

Zach stared off into space as if Chris wasn't right in front of him. "They said it. They actually said it!"

"Wait a minute…" Chris startled and yanked himself out of Zach's grasp. He found himself yelling accusingly, "You're not insulted they're plotting this at all! You're  _flattered as **HELL**_ , aren't you!?"

The relentless, villainous cackling that exploded from Zach seconds later verified this better than any actual words would have. Zach was laughing so hard he was crying and didn't seem to care or even notice. It was the worst bout of evil mirth Chris had ever witnessed and he had to put his hands over his ears to keep from being deafened by it.

"Three days," Chris said blandly once Zach had calmed to mere insane giggling. It had taken a long while. "You had  _three days_  left, Zach. Good try, though."

Zach took several deep breaths and sat down to try to compose himself. Eventually he looked back up with a manic grin, wiping the tears from his eyes with his fists and still snickering from time to time. "What do you mean 'good try'?"

"You hacked our surveillance. That's a breach of contract." Chris pointed out calmly and shrugged. "You're fired. Sorry."

"Ah-ah-ah!" Zach ticked a finger at him, still giggling. "The contract forbids my making any attempts on hacking or spying  _while the contract is in effect_. It does NOT state I have to  _remove or stop using_  hacks or bugs that were  _already_ there when I arrived. Believe me: I checked. It's vital to my company that I understand how to translate  ** _legalese_** , Chris." Zach gleefully spun around in his chair and sing-songed, "You- _can't_ -fire-me-because-I-haven't-breached-the-contract! At least not in a way you can prove."

Chris seethed. "How long have you been in our system!?"

"It'd be easier to give you a timeline of when I'm  **not**  in your system," Zach offered helpfully once he'd stopped spinning. "Occasionally Aviva spots me and kicks me out but it never lasts for long… which is weird because if she can program DNA why can't she figure out a little recurring bug in her system?"

Chris sat down heavily. "This is SO illegal. I could have you arrested-"

"Go ahead," Zach snorted. "But hacking is illegal no matter who is doing it or why. You don't think I have excruciatingly detailed accounts of each time  _Aviva_  hacked  _my_  system to save your precious animals?" Zach smiled sweetly and lilted, "If I go down for hacking  _I'm taking her with me!_ "

Chris smiled benignly at him but his eyes were as hard as hailstones. "I think I hate you, which is annoying because I sort of liked you when I woke up this morning."

"Music to my ears," Zach preened, glad to have a sense of normalcy in his world again. "Aviva's plan is doomed. Don't even bother trying to 'break my barriers'."

"I wasn't being nice to you because Aviva told me to, you know," Chris said blankly. "I sort of knew about what they were up to, but not why and I didn't know they expected me to be part of it until just now, so you can stop thinking I was in on it."

"If you weren't in on it, then they're just using you as a pawn in the scheme too. Or maybe they didn't trust you to keep it a secret from me." Zach gave him a look of suspicious disbelief, but didn't comment further. "We have to be in the Tortuga to work in an hour. You can go early or wait for me; I don't really care."

As Zach stalked off to the shower he left the video on. Chris resisted the urge to keep watching it and turned it off. He still wanted to, though, and that frustrated him more than Zach's behavior did. He was used to Zach being a sneaky little rat, but he'd never thought he'd be tempted to do that sort of thing too. He hoped it was just because he was currently mad at Martin and Aviva and not because he had sneaky tendencies he didn't know about.

As he sat there and brooded Chris realized it was very difficult to stay mad at Zach for long over this kind of thing. On the sliding scale of morality Zach had been very well-behaved compared to his usual self. A little hacking was nothing compared to some of the other things he could have been doing and it didn't even place animals in danger – it was just extremely frustrating. Even if Chris told the others Zach had heard their conversation he sincerely doubted anyone would be surprised. They'd just be angry that their cover was blown to hell.

Sighing, Chris picked up the data pad again and browsed through more of Zach's random brainstorming. He couldn't help but laugh when he saw some of the new alternative Zachbot designs. Apparently Zach could learn about animal abilities if he was left no choice in the matter.

* * *

 

Zach's phone rang three times while he was in the shower. He paid exactly enough attention to realize it was happening but didn't actually answer it. Once he was done he toweled off and called back without looking at the number, assuming it was either Martin or Aviva again.

"What do you want?" he snapped while he combed his hair into place and began to gel it.

" _Ooooh!_  I see you got rid of that little tummy you were getting, Darling," Donita's voice purred. "Well done!"

Zach yelped and fumbled with his phone to turn off the video he'd left on, which didn't work because the gel on his hands made it impossible to accomplish much more than holding it without dropping it. If he moved even one finger it'd slip out of his grasp and, with his luck, the phone would wind up in the toilet. All he managed was angling it enough to keep most of him out of view while he lamented that he hadn't put on his robe yet. He was too late to stop the damage, apparently, because Donita was smiling smugly and Dabio was behind her, as usual, and giving him an appraising look. Damn them.

At least it wasn't a client or his mother, but still. Zach was going to put a video block on specific numbers. Since he had to turn the video on and off so often because of the Kratt's stupid rule on it he kept forgetting what it was set for and when. Usually he always had the video off when he was resting, which is why answering while he was in the bathroom had been reflexive. His settings were now opposite their usual arrangement so he had turned it on instead.

"What do you want?" he drawled, trying to pretend he wasn't the least bit embarrassed. At least he was still red from the hot water and had that excuse for being the color of a pale tomato. "I'm still under contract here so you'll have to put up with a technician again."

Donita gave what she could still see of Zach an obvious long once-over before she spoke. "What are the chances you won't tattle to your little entourage of environmentalists if I ask you for a teensy favor?"

Zach snorted. As expected they had no hard feelings over their last encounter because each of them perfectly understood what had happened. Donita had done her job, Zach had done his, and expecting the other person to be anything less than entirely self-serving was laughable. The Okapi incident was nothing personal and had no bearing on what was happening now. "That depends on what the favor is. If its business related and doesn't interfere with their contract then it's none of their concern."

"Oh, good. I need my Pose-Beam repaired. I was a little rough on it and-"

Zach cut in quickly before she could start regaling him with the sordid tale of exactly how she and Dabio had managed to over-exert a device intended to forcefully position bodies however the wielder wanted. "I don't care, woman. I'll send a Zachbot to pick it up. Depending on how bad you've fried it  _this time_  I might need a while to get the work done. These Wild Rats are more demanding than most toddlers, and just as destructive. The only consolation I have is that it'll be Aviva's job to babysit them again soon."

"Really? How long is your contract? A couple of months? Dabio and I have a running bet-"

Zach rolled his eyes. "She's not knocked-up as far as I know. At least it's not why she's out of commission."

Dabio grinned and Donita pouted while she fished a wad of bills out of her belt and held it over her shoulder for him. "Oh, poo. I suppose it was too much to expect the reason to be interesting. So?"

"Three more days," Zach sighed. "After that you may torment them to your hearts content, as will I. Until then I'm on my best behavior… because I don't get paid otherwise."

Donita leaned back into Dabio as if he were her favorite chair and hummed thoughtfully. "Any interesting gossip? You must be learning some fascinating things there."

Zach grinned. "Oh, yeah."

"Shall we have that coffee date, then? How about tomorrow evening?"

He shook his head. "These Wild Rrats have no set hours. I don't get weekends or evenings off. This contract is on-call every second of every day."

"THAT sucks," Dabio said sympathetically. He lived under very much the same parameters. Donita swung an elbow back and hit him. He smiled nervously at her and let out a relieved breath when she let the comment go.

"Monday morning," she stated the earliest time outside of the contract, leaving no room for argument. "And of course you'll bring the Pose-Beam back then."

"What?" Zach balked. "I don't know how long it'll take to fix-"

"Marvelous. Ciao, Darling!" She hung up.

Zach snarled and just managed to put the phone down without slamming or dropping it before resuming his usual after-shower routine. Despite this being very normal when he dealt with Donita, Zach was beginning to realize his current company wasn't too far removed from his usual company. Nobody ever wanted anything to do with him unless they needed his help with something they were too technologically inept to do themselves or they wanted his money. In Donita's case there were times when he was just convenient and something to do with her spare time. Not that he really minded that last part after he'd accepted that was all she wanted, it was just annoying it was an extension of the same problem: everyone wanted something  _from him_  and never gave anything  _back to him_  if they could avoid it.

Was it too much to ask someone want him around just because? He wasn't a  _complete_  jerk. Zach was well aware that it was close, but it wasn't total.

It was with this thought in mind that Zach walked out of the bedroom dressed and ready and saw Chris blatantly moping in a chair while he stared at the Tortuga. The monitor had been turned off and his data pad was sitting untouched on the console nearby. Zach crossed his arms and kicked the base of the chair Chris was in.

"Call in sick or something. It's not like they'll challenge you on it or you don't need the break," he snapped.

Chris glared weakly for the kick. "We need to start moving soon. We're due for an event tomorrow on Rota island to release captive Gallirallus owstoni in an attempt to establish a wild breeding colony of them. They're currently extinct in the wild. We're using the event to raise awareness of invasive species and-"

"I get it: we've got work to do. So why do you have to be  _in the Tortuga_  to get there?" Zach drawled. "For that matter  _why do I?_  I'm out of work to do over there and instead of having the Zachbots pilot my jet behind the Tortuga we can just ride separately. They'll survive without you for a shift of travel time."

Chris lifted a brow. "Are you being nice to me?"

"I'm not incapable of it," he whined defensively.

"Why?"

Zach shrugged. "I thought about it and I might believe you weren't in on their 'project', which gets you some brownie points. Not a lot but some."

"That really wasn't fair," Chris agreed. "Not the trying to be your friends part, but doing it to try and control you somehow and not because they really wanted to."

Zach snorted. "Aviva's good at that type of game, she just doesn't like to admit it."

"I'll have to take your word for it. You've known her the longest and I obviously don't know her as well as I thought I did." Chris frowned and tilted his head curiously. "Was it working?"

"What?"

"Their plan."

"No," Zach lied firmly. "Now call before we're technically late. I'll go figure out where that island is and plot a course."

"Why don't you just follow the Tortuga?"

"Because I don't follow – I  _race_  – and they're in a  _turtle_. We're going to beat them there and be on the beach long before they arrive." Zach said with finality. "And if we're waiting for them to catch up it's still billable hours for me, too."

Chris smiled a little at that. "You on a beach? What are you going to do? With your skin you'll shrivel up and blow away in that much sun."

Zach straightened and answered haughtily, "I will be sitting under an umbrella reading and ignoring everyone that isn't me."

"That sounds about right," Chris laughed. "But it doesn't sound like you'll be having much fun."

"I rarely do," he answered flatly, and went to plot the course.

* * *

 

"Guys! Chris just called," Jimmy called from the cockpit.

Martin rushed in and frowned when he saw Jimmy had already hung up and wasn't actively talking to his brother. "What's going on?"

Jimmy shrugged. "We're still going to the event, just in two different ways. Zach and Chris are going ahead in the jet."

Koki smacked him on the calf, which was the only part of him she could reach from under the console she was repairing. "Why didn't you tell Chris to stop being stupid and come back to the Tortuga?"

Jimmy moved his leg away from her. "Because the only thing I hate more than active arguing is awkward silence, and we're going to the same place anyway. At least this way we're still doing our jobs, Chris still gets his moping space, and he's interacting with Zach in the meantime. Isn't that what we're aiming for?"

"But-" Martin began morosely.

Koki hit his leg too. "Yes. Yes it is."

"It's too late to argue anyway because they just took off," Jimmy said and pointed to the retreating black form in the sky.

Martin's right eyelid twitched. "I just hope Chris is influencing Zach and not the other way around."

* * *

 

Whereas Chris was unaccustomed to the pace Zach set going from one place to another he had to admit it was a nice change from the slower the-trip-is-half-the-fun attitude the Kratts team seemed to adopt when travelling. Kratts made plans. They had stops along the way. They changed course a little if it got them somewhere interesting. They swung by the places where their junior members lived if there was a large enough group to interact with them personally and teach them things. Sometimes they put off their plans entirely if they could lend a hand doing everything from helping clean up after disasters and delivering supplies to victims of them, to responding to random distress signals. It was part of the entire Wild Kratt lifestyle.

Zach dashed from Point A to Point B like nothing else existed. True to his word they were on Rota Island before the resort rooms Zach had ordered were even finished being cleaned from the last people there. And Zach  _still complained about it_  until Chris was actually embarrassed being seen with the spoiled idiot in public thereafter.

Zach's choice of attire certainly did not help much in recovering from that feeling.

"That is absolutely the dumbest bathing suit I have ever seen," Chris said flatly and honestly, pointing at Zach accusingly. "And I'm including the one Donita wore in Maui that was basically string and beads that she couldn't legally wear outside the 'adult' areas."

Zach smirked and said fondly, "Ooh, yeah. I remember that one: decorative and stylish, but ultimately pointless. Why bother wearing anything at all if you're leaving that much exposed anyway?"

It was a lovely sunny day aside from a little more cloud cover than Chris would have preferred for a beach outing. The breeze coming off the sea was strong but not strong enough to be a bother, and the clouds in the distance foretold rain that would arrive much, much later in the day. There weren't many people on this beach because it was a part of the land owned by the resort Zach had gotten them into, not that many people came to this island to vacation anyway: it was one of those little-travelled paradises. Bird calls and waves crashing and the sound of distant music drifted around them in a steady din of positively zen-like quality.

Zach (of course) was sitting on a blanket so he wouldn't have to touch the sand, under a giant black-out umbrella so the sunlight couldn't get to him, with headphones on so the beach sounds wouldn't lull him to sleep, with an Engineering Manual in his lap so he could use this time to do something  _useful,_  and flanked by Zachbots to keep the birds away from his snacks. Only one of the ear buds was currently in, so that he could listen to Chris. He absolutely refused to buy a different bathing suit for someone else's comfort: he liked this one.

"Don't you have another suit?" Chris asked testily. "One that doesn't look like the braces and taped coke-bottle glasses should be included?"

"You just don't appreciate classic styles, do you? I thought you wanted to run around and indulge in all this outdoorsy stuff. Shoo," Zach motioned vaguely toward the water.

Chris crossed his arms. "I assume classic translates to old?"

Zach looked at Chris, smiled, then slowly and deliberately put his other earbud in and turned up the volume before looking back down at his book.

Chris's eye twitched. "Forget you, then," he muttered.

After Chris had walked out of sight Zach finally answered the increasingly frustrated texts from Donita insisting Zach stop blocking her from the Kratts systems. He refused as rudely as possible without jeopardizing his job fixing the Pose-Beam, and went back to his reading without another thought. It didn't occur to him that he'd already given his Zachbots his location so that they could deliver the Pose-Beam for repair.

Donita didn't have to get into the Kratts' system or get Zach to tell her where he was. She just had to follow Zach's obedient little drones to where their master, and thus his current employers, were heading.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody who actually watches Wild Kratts should be surprised at Zach's absurd lack of common sense despite his technical ability. NOBODY.


	8. Moral Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Officially the longest chapter I have written for anything EVER.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that this isn't a very celebrated fandom and not many people in the fandom even follow the main pairing of this story. It's one of those things that I really wanted to try out because I didn't think the characters were getting enough love and had way more potential than what was being portrayed. I may have even felt this narrative explosion marinating in my head somewhere when I decided to start writing it last year: I'm not sure.
> 
> Whatever the reason, this is now one of my favorite stories. And that surprises me because I've never liked the first story I've written for any fandom, let alone a children's show. I might just have to try Dragon Hunters next.
> 
> Let's keep going and see what happens, shall we?

**Chapter 8: Moral Wounds**

* * *

"Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart." ~ _Alexandre Dumas_ , The Count of Monte Cristo

* * *

 

**Day 19, continued**

By the time the Tortuga arrived on Rota there was very little time for much of anything but a late supper and a decent night's sleep. Jimmy had been forced to take a very creative route to get there due to weather, visiting a group of Wild Kratts Kids for a few hours, and an unexpected stop to buy Martin some medicine to settle his stomach when the high winds rocking their vessel proved too much for him in his agitated state. Martin had given up on calling Chris and had taken to sulking while he once again cleaned the animal pens in the lower levels just for something to do until his younger brother finally decided they were on speaking terms again.

When he was finished with his own chores Martin resolved to do Chris's chores too, only to discover that Koki and Jimmy had already got to them while he was sulking. This made him sulk even harder. He called to Aviva to vent and reassure himself that Chris would come around to break himself out of it, but forgot that she was on a plane and wasn't allowed to use her phone because that particular airline was traditionally mean about it.

Eventually he made his way to the creature he felt most comfortable talking to at the moment in the hopes of getting some advice. Glimmer, the Metallic Tarantula that Martin had named just that morning, listened patiently as he told her the entire tale from start to finish - all the time turning her egg sac to be sure it maintained the proper shape. She couldn't exactly do anything else, but when he was finished there was the distinct sense of someone thinking. Martin paused to give her that time and sat, pouting visibly, by her and waited.

He'd cleaned her area, not touched her eggs, brought her food and water, and kept her warm. She knew him and liked him, even if she suspected she'd still bite him if he did anything she didn't like. But that was normal and a perfectly reasonable thing for a Tarantula to do and this weird hairless ape had no real reason to be nice to her, so she'd return the favor.

"So what should I do?" he asked eventually. By that time he was an Orb Weaver and had perched far enough away to be respectful, but close enough to see her reactions. Sometimes, on the edges of his mind where dreams met reality, he imagined he could actually tell what the animals were trying to tell him. It wasn't words, but sensations and colors and feelings and something  **heavy**  that was almost thought but a lot tougher. Nothing a mere human was deep enough to communicate by. He barely understood it, but he got the general message if he was still and concentrated, or more accurately, concentrated on  _not concentrating_.

She gave him a long, calculating look... or at least faced in his direction. She was a spider and didn't have much of an ability to communicate on human levels. But she did know that her friend was upset, and whatever the problem was; he couldn't kill it and fighting was useless and he couldn't run from it either. The only other answer she had was the same one she had for herself in her own situation.

She climbed into a protective shield-like position over her egg sac, and gave him a multi-eyed stare that clearly and definitively said: BE PATIENT.

Martin sighed and wilted into a pile of gangling arachnid limbs. He certainly hadn't heard words, but the sensation of her staring brought him to ideas he wouldn't have otherwise had.

That was how you knew what animals were thinking: somehow they managed to think FOR YOU.

"You're being very patient waiting for your eggs to hatch, aren't you? It must be nice to have that kind of staying-power." Martin fiddled his limbs over his silk-spinners and made a cats-cradle idly. "Is it instinctive or something that you have to just... do? The more I call the more I can tell he's staying mad. I  _know_ I should just wait, but I'm not very good at it and..."

LEARN.

Martin didn't get the last message as clearly as the last one, but he felt how  **heavy**  it was and knew that he'd been told to suck it up. It had the same feeling to it at least. It was that blunt, fierce, 'we're done talking' feeling and had been shot at him with the force of a gavel slamming down on a Judge's desk.

Chris didn't believe him (probably because he was thinking too much), and Aviva didn't believe him either (because she had given up on it), but Martin knew he could hear these things. He KNEW he could tell what they were trying to say - words or not.

Martin had to admit it wasn't exactly a  _pleasant_  experience talking to animals... it was like being softly bludgeoned directly in the subconscious with a brick. No matter how clear he thought he was being he felt like he was trying to write cursive telepathically in overcooked spaghetti - but his feelings seemed to get through. It only worked, ever, if he was a vaguely similar shape, though. Spider-to-spider, cat-to-cat, canine-to-canine, and oddly enough sea creature-to-sea-creature (they all seemed to have the same wavelength). The worst thing was when Martin got the feeling he was talking to someone much smarter than he was and the brick/spaghetti thing felt backwards.

This was only with Orangutans, Dolphins, Lemurs, and some birds thus far.

He got the distinct feeling that Pelicans were  _bastards,_  too, and not the sort of bastards you can reason with either. Snidely Whiplash had  _nothing_ on Pelicans.

"Could you repeat that?" he asked plaintively, and formed a heart-shape with his cats-cradle. "Please?"

Glimmer turned around and looking at her back was like seeing a medieval fortified wall from exactly the wrong side.

"You're not going to repeat it, are you?" he asked softly. "Animals don't repeat things like that. It's like a growl or a porcupine quill to the face or a spray from a skunk... you either get it or you don't and if you don't you're evolution fodder."

She turned briefly and regarded him like something too disgusting to eat, then turned again.

"I can't help it! I'm human!" he snapped without knowing why. Then Martin took his own form again and continued sulking on the main floor.

* * *

 

In order to leave the Hospital Aviva had to beg and plead and Super-Ultra-Mega-Special-Pinky-Swear to take her medicine on time no matter what, even if only four doses were left. Her doctor was an insufferable, unappeasable, inflexible man.

He was her mother's doctor. He'd delivered her.

He'd delivered  _her mother._

He'd seen her take her first breath and hoped to any Gods that might watch over him that he wouldn't live to see her take her last but he'd love to see her come in to give him that new-life experience again.

He was an  **impossible**  man to please and treated her like a damned prisoner the whole time she was there. He'd taken her laptop and Creature Pod away and tied her down when she'd been delirious and tried to pull her own IV out and force-fed her things that no sane person would ever eat. He'd threatened to kill Martin for not calling her daily and said he wasn't good enough for her and nobody really was and he was a complete asshole and  _she was really going to miss him!_

He was a family friend. The sort of friend that was closer than blood because he handled family blood regularly. The only damned reason he wasn't official family was because he'd buried his fiancé, who had been mere minutes from being his wife before she died.

When Aviva married she was  **not**  doing it in a multi-floored building, because she had a stark and horrible real-life reminder of the fact that walking down a flight of stairs in a dress taller than she was and shoes she was unfamiliar with while trying to look pretty for the camera could end very, very badly.

Three weeks of mandatory bed rest had been severe overkill but he was prone to that with anyone named Corcovado. Everybody knew it. Nobody questioned it.

Aviva loved he doctor but she was going to  _kill him_  because he had delayed her too long.

Her flight was either going to be too late or  _just in time_. She wanted to be there for the last day of Zach's contract. Maybe they could manage to get along somehow. She hoped she could utilize her "I'll-keep-resting-I-promise" rant as an excuse to do just that - claim Zach was still needed because she'd sworn her undying word to the Awesomely Evil Family Doctor, Great Uncle that had Never Quite Been, and a Very Mean Man that had her mountainously overbearing grandmother on speed-dial. Those two combined could stop an Ice Age if they put their minds to it. Little Aviva trying to run off on a friendship errand while sick would've had NO CHANCE.

But she had thankfully convinced them and escaped. She was on her way.

Unfortunately the only useful thing that you can do on an airplane is sit and wait.

"I hate waiting," she seethed caustically.

It had been a very hard three weeks for her. It didn't comfort her much that it hadn't been much easier for her friends.

* * *

 

The evening went slowly and miserably for Chris. He walked along the beach aimlessly until the pleasant sounds buffeted his brain into a dull aching resentment of how chipper the rest of the world was trying to be. He felt it very unfair that he couldn't enjoy himself in such an ideal setting while he was fretting over his recent relationship issues. He thought he couldn't possibly be the first man to feel this rejected and betrayed, realized it was undoubtedly true, then fretted that anyone had ever been subjected to feeling worse than he was.

A proper sense of empathy was not always a good thing. Combined with his pity for people he had never actually met it also made him feel bad for all the effort the island paradise was going to in an effort to make him feel better.

Chris gave up unusually early for him, even he knew it, and returned to Zach in the hopes of just going back to the resort and going to bed. The storm on the horizon was getting closer and he wouldn't have been able to enjoy more than four more hours at the beach anyway. He knew it was going to clear up before the Wild Kratts release of Micronesian Kingfishers tomorrow, so it didn't bother him aside from making his beach time shorter.

And of course Zach had to be difficult about it.

"Why don't you, you know, go  _do something_!?" he challenged. "You won't make any progress moping yourself into an apathetic coma. Believe me." Zach sat up, pulled out his ear buds, and put down his book. He crossed his arms at Chris as if he were being childish entirely on purpose.

"Like what?" Chris prompted wryly.

Zach snapped irately. "I don't know! There's a golf course, stuff in the village to explore, you could go have a preliminary meeting with your clients for tomorrow's presentation thingy, go to the French restaurant - it's already paid for on the package I got anyway." He stretched and stood, looking exactly like someone would if they had spent the entire afternoon in the shade reading rather than actually exercising; as if they hadn't been outside at all but were still vaguely tired. He was still redder than usual just from the heat and Chris made a mental note to offer the pallid man water if he ever met him in a desert again. "There might be a sauna somewhere too. I wasn't really paying attention when the Clerk was trying to make excuses for our room not being ready."

Chris sighed and shook his head tiredly. He couldn't exactly get into the suite without Zach because he had the keys, and he didn't think he'd actually sleep if he got in the bed either. Moping seemed the likeliest of options, and Zach would just make himself a pest and interrupt that. "Fine. We'll go to the restaurant, I guess."  _Anything_ to make Zach change out of that stupid bathing suit. "Come on."

Zach snorted. "What is this 'we' you speak of? Why should I go with you?"

Chris smiled and crossed his arms. "First because the rain is almost here and it'll last all night and almost until noon tomorrow," he said. "So if you don't come back with me now you'll get soaked and just stay that way. Second because the restaurant you're referring to is the only one at this resort, so you won't get your money's worth if we eat in two separate places. You really  _weren't_  paying attention when the clerk was talking, were you?"

Zach crossed his arms and pouted. "This place sucks."

"If you say so," Chris shrugged. "I think they've been very patient with you."

"How so?" Zach asked, gathering his things. By which the chronicler means that the Zachbots were gathering his things while he watched.

"Never mind," Chris groaned.

Not long after that they arrived at their table escorted by a  _very large_  host that Chris was entirely sure had at least partial Walrus ancestry even if it was physically impossible. Maybe it was a spiritual kinship. Either way he screamed 'walrus' in every respect but the obvious being human part. Zach had sort of cringed behind Chris until the man left, which was an interesting skill considering he was slightly taller than Chris was. Whereas Chris didn't want to be rude and went out of his way to try and regard the man equally as anyone else, Zach seemed to have lost that piece of his personality that made him demand constant attention and willfully faded into the background.

"Did the mean man scare you?" Chris teased after the host was out of earshot.

Zach stuck his tongue out for a fraction of a second, giving him the appearance of a slightly put-out snake tasting the air. "He had  _tusks_ ," he argued plainly.

Chris crossed his arms. "No, he had an overbite. There's a significant difference."

"Whatever," the pale man bit out and started scanning the menu. "Just pretend we're on a business meeting or something." Zach had been unusually clipped since they'd arrived, and his method of dress spoke to it as well - rather than his tight black jeans and turtleneck he was in something more business-like and formal; black slacks and a grey button-up shirt complete with briefcase beside him on the floor. Chris had initially thought it was because Zach was simply dressing for dinner and wanted a few gadgets nearby. Now he had his suspicions.

"Why?" Chris asked.

"You don't spend much time in cities, do you?" Zach asked wryly. "Or on vacation in resorts where people typically go on their honeymoon?"

Chris's answer was honest and short, "No."

Which prompted Zach to groan a little and shake his head, then attempt to explain tactfully. "We're two adults on an island paradise that have apparently saved for the occasion (since I'm not likely known here), sharing the same suite in the most expensive resort on the whole landmass that just spent the day together on the beach."

"So?" Chris prompted, not quite getting this.

"And we're obviously  _not_  related," Zach continued with his hand out as if waiting for Chris to give him something. His voice took on a 'how dumb are you?' hitch and he continued a bit desperately when Chris continued staring blankly at him,  _"And in a French restaurant."_

Chris raised a brow and was about to ask what the heck Zach was rambling about when the waitress came up to them with a broad smile. "How are you enjoying your stay?" she asked with the practiced and pleasant air of someone with a lot of training in that particular area. "There are a lot of attractions for couples to enjoy further in toward the center of the village if you're in need of advice."

 _*Couples. Oh. Oh!*_  Chris blinked as understanding hit him and he took in the exasperated look Zach sent him, which clearly said -  _'See?!'_

The waitress continued talking because she had rehearsed this speech and was just dim-witted enough to miss those significant looks. " **Chamorro**  Ancestral Park is particularly beautiful this time of year, Toga Cave is right along Songsong village, and there's the Bird Sanctuary too! There you can see-"

"We have an appointment for business at the Bird Sanctuary tomorrow, in fact," Zach said hurriedly, emphasizing the word 'business'.

She beamed at him. "Oh, you already know about it!"

"It's the whole reason we came here. Chris has a thing for wildlife," Zach drawled. "I'm just along for the ride."

The waitress looked at Zach as if he were a saint. "It's very nice of you to do that for him. And you reserved such a nice suite for the two of you, so I'm sure you'll have a great time here."

Chris took that moment to weigh his options and decided, since there were no other witnesses, to annoy the ever living hell out of his long-time rival with a little acting. Zach's careful explaining tactic was clearly not working, so why not?

"Yes," Chris said loyally, sending Zach an almost vapid smile. "It  _is_  a nice suite, isn't it?"

Zach looked very nonplussed and disturbed by this. The waitress missed his gawk entirely because she was now facing Chris.

"I must apologize for how mean he was to the clerk when we got here... he's usually not so rude," Chris continued. "But he wanted this whole thing to be  _perfect_ and all, so I think he snapped a little bit. Could you please tell the clerk for me? Zach really got out of hand for a moment there and I feel terrible about it."

"My complaint was completely valid!" Zach snapped irately, slamming his fists on the table until the candle in the middle rattled.

"Little bit of a handful?" the woman asked Chris understandingly.

Zach spluttered while Chris continued the conversation, completely unheeding of his discomfort with it.

"Not usually. It's a special occasion and he's just overbearing when he's excited. The suite is great, though, and you've all been really patient with my Zach, so I'll write up a great review for this place when we get back home." Chris pointed to his order on the menu and smiled at the waitress when she wrote it down immediately after a quick little glance. She was very good.

"We'd really appreciate that, thank you! And you, sir?" she asked Zach, who was now focused entirely on Chris and clearly livid.

Zach continued glaring at Chris and ignored the waitress completely. "What are you doing!?" he demanded. "We have two  _completely different_  rooms, Chris! This isn't funny, and-"

"Does somebody snore?" the waitress asked Zach with clear sympathy.

Zach gave up and went as serious as a natural disaster. "No," he began unenthusiastically. "Have you ever heard of that rare sleep disorder where the sufferer attacks anyone near them instead of sleepwalking? I have that."

While the woman's eyes became as wide as golf balls, Chris took on a warning tone. "Zach..."

Zach continued doggedly. "Therefore it is  _extremely important_  that my dear Chris sleep in an entirely different room behind a locked door," he said darkly. "-or he may never wake up again."

Chris put his face in his hands dejectedly while the woman hastily took down Zach's order. "I'll just get your meals then. Good evening, gentleman."

Chris got the feeling she was sending a different waiter to bring their food back.

Zach grinned contentedly and picked up the menu again to examine the more adult beverages. "Do you know what you want for dessert, Dear?" he asked pointedly.

"Sleepkilling?" Chris drawled. "Really!?"

"You started it."

"That poor woman..."

"She'll live," Zach drawled. Then, as if it were a joke Chris was supposed to understand, "I almost wish Koki was here. They have lobster."

The rest of the dinner went fine. At some point Chris brought up what they had done to that poor waitress (who didn't come back) and they wound up grinning like idiots. Zach seemed overly fond of shellfish and Chris had to advise him not to overindulge lest it make him sick, and Zach for his part made sure Chris stopped after his third glass of wine because he had things to do tomorrow while conspicuously matching him drink-for-drink with Mojitos. They talked about things entirely at random. Everything from childhood shenanigans to the fact that Zach was really disturbed by Chris's Tasmanian Devil form and Chris was surprised Zach was astoundingly good company when he wasn't plotting floated around them in the air until they were almost the last ones there.

The last thing Zach mentioned was Chris's new Creature Power Suit.

"How did you do that so fast?" Chris asked with a wavering grin. He didn't drink often.

Zach did, at least moderately, so he was steadier. "All I needed was your measurements and everything else could be done by my Zachbots. They occasionally double as assistance when Donita needs emergency sewing done when humans just wouldn't be fast enough for the job. Either way it's going to be a little while to make sure the connecting circuitry is ready to meld seamlessly with the components normally imbedded in your usual suit. There's a lot of intricacy in those suits, and I'm amazed they even work when different people put them on because they're essentially grabbing on to different genetic codes and changing them in very small but very different ways…"

"Impressed with Aviva?" Chris asked tauntingly.

"Yes," Zach admitted. "This is why a warning is in order. This suit is just for  _you_. I can't be certain it'll work properly if anyone else puts it on. I've only been able to test adequately that your genetic code will change perfectly. I really can't guarantee anyone else's safety if they try it."

Chris sobered a bit and sat up straighter. "Oh… would you be ok with it if Aviva fixed that?"

"I'd need a contract or something in place first to make sure she wouldn't-"

"Steal anything from your design?" Chris finished wryly. "You know she wouldn't."

Zach shrugged. "Call me a suspicious jerk if you want, but that sort of insurance has saved me more times than I care to admit. No matter how much you might want to believe people wouldn't betray you they always do."

"That's a terrible thing to believe about people," Chris said in astonishment. "How can you think that way?"

Zach shrugged. "Because it's true; for me, anyway. It's just experience. I don't trust people because nobody has actually proven themselves trustworthy."

Chris winced. "I never really thought about it that way."

Zach laughed and held up his hand for another round. "Don't spoil the mood, Wild Rat. I can't remember the last time I had drinks with someone like this. I do appreciate you actually leaving me alone at the beach today. Everyone else tries to drag me out! Hard as it is to believe there exists a certain type of person that's happier NOT getting sunburned."

Chris smiled a little. "That was almost direct thanks."

"Then I didn't say it clearly enough." Zach huffed. "And it's annoying that you're acting like this is an entirely new concept. I  _have_  thanked you before."

Zach almost continued, but Chris interrupted. "You really  _were_  happier under that blackout umbrella than you would have been in the water, weren't you?"

"Yes," Zach raised his glass when it got there, and Chris blearily raised his own. "Thank you for realizing it."

They toasted and sipped.

Chris frowned. "Hey! This is cranberry juice!"

"You're cut off. I don't know what your tolerance is and we're working tomorrow. Deal with it," Zach smirked, sipping his own drink smugly.

When they got back to their suite both of them were pleasantly buzzed, still in good spirits, and continued talking long after midnight. Neither remembered exactly when they had gone to sleep, but when they woke up it was with the sense of urgency that comes with a day that has important and unsavory appointments to attend.

The Zachbots had delivered the Pose-Beam to the jet overnight and sent Zach a message telling him. He ignored it and got ready for the Kingfisher release. The Kratts may demand unreasonable hours, but he wasn't about to work them for anyone  _else_  while he was under a contract like that.

**DAY 20**

"Guess what I did," Zach challenged proudly, his face a strangely welcome sight over the communications screen on Koki's station in the Tortuga.

"Let's see…" Koki began before anyone else. "Ooh, you've discovered a way to preserve whine so we can enjoy it while you're away?" She pronounced the 'h' in whine quite clearly so that it wasn't missed and most everyone but Zach snickered before they could help themselves.

Zach reddened and growled, but took a breath and continued. "No. I got Chris in a good mood and ready for the Bird Sanctuary thing. He's on his way there to meet with the groundskeepers and help set up." He preened and posed for the onlookers. "You may praise me now."

"Really? That's  **great**! Be right there." Martin ran out of sight and down to the lower levels to get ready.

Zach wilted. "That's all I get? It wasn't easy, you know!"

Koki smiled and shrugged. "Martin is a lot more concerned with meeting his brother than praising you," she said. "But thanks all the same. I'd like to know why, though."

"Two words, Koki: Billable Hours," he snapped. "Babysitting Chris counts as overtime."

Koki snorted. "Oh." She didn't bother refuting it; Zach knew the contract he had signed backwards, sideways, and could probably read it back to her in Latin.

"I suppose I'm expected to be present during this event?" he hazarded worriedly.

Koki smiled at him. "Yup. So much for your image, Mr. Varmitech. I wonder how many of your regular clients will be watching the news?"

"The sort of news that tells these touchy-feely stories isn't generally watched by my typical clientele," Zach drawled.  _But it'll get me lots of attention when I open my coffee houses and launch my eco-friendly line of products, so there. Two-timing is profitable if you do it right._  "I'll be there; but I may hang back and let you nature-loving loonies take center stage."

"Fine," Koki shrugged.

"Fine," Zach answered saucily, and then hung up.

* * *

 

Martin and Chris were  _fantastic_  actors.

Aviva hadn't been in time for the presentation - she was probably less than a few hours away from landing, though. That was probably all the better. She might have been the spark this tense situation needed to ignite between the brothers and knowing their luck she was late because it was the best possible thing that could have happened just then. Somehow these people always had  _all the luck_.

Martin arrived while Chris was helping set up for the presentation. Martin joined in and... It was like a sort of mutual agreement that, for now at least, the fight hadn't even happened. They presented beautifully, recited some speech on invasive species and the wonders of unique island-native fauna, schmoozed with the press and local activist groups, swore in a whole new chapter of Kratts Kids recruits, and the entire time maintained the sort of charisma and blunt honesty Zach envied.

If he could only pull off that level of tact in the face of so many questions and challenges and strangers he knew he'd have the press wrapped around his little finger every time Varmitech Industries had to present something in public. He usually had a face-man do that, though. It'd be hard to find someone with Wild Kratts-levels of charisma. There was one major problem with that, though: Martin and Chris Kratt could pull off honesty and caring so well because they  _really did mean everything they said_. They weren't acting. They were just being themselves.

Zach found that a little disconcerting.

He had hung back during the presentation and kept to the shadows or stayed out of sight behind the small crowd. Of course the actual bird release occurred after the presentation and after-party: that was done by the Kratts Team well after the people had left well inside the boundaries of the Sanctuary so that the Kingfishers could examine their new area in calm and safety. Jimmy stayed in the Tortuga and Koki walked around snapping pictures of the colorful little birds while they explored their surroundings.

Meanwhile the Kratt brothers seemed to be enjoying a companionable silence while they set up bird feeders and some water sources for the birds to return to until they got the hang of 'living free and in the wild', where all involved hoped they wouldn't get picked off by snakes. The Sanctuary had been cleared of the things as best they could manage, but you never know for sure until birds started disappearing.

Zach was helping by staying out of the way of those that actually knew what they were doing, drinking a chai tea since it was after Chris's 'decaf only' cutoff time, and doodling a labyrinthine floorplan for a new office that was guaranteed to save the maximum amount of space and money whilst simultaneously confusing the hell out of anyone unlucky enough to actually work there. Zach had a long list of difficult employees he had no legal grounds to actually fire that he wouldn't mind transferring out of his main office.

Or maybe he'd make this his new building his Eco-friendly department and make them responsible for all the newer items he'd been drawing up in the past weeks. Zach wouldn't get as much satisfaction out of the intentionally difficult floor plan if he wasn't sending people he already disliked there to punish them and the sort of people he'd need to hire to pull off his new product line would probably miss the point completely. He'd bet his yacht that instead of complaints he'd end up getting compliments on his 'organically flowing design' or something equally stupid.

"Where's Koki?" Martin asked suddenly. It was loud enough to make Zach snap out of his thoughts and look up at them.

Chris blinked and looked around. "She was here just a second ago."

Zach rolled his eyes and sneered at them. "Maybe she went into the brush after some of the pretty birdies and isn't answering you so that she doesn't scare them off?" he offered. "Since, you know, she was trying to take pictures of them and all?"

Martin frowned and looked to his brother. "Does he  _have to_  be snide?"

Chris chuckled. "I'm getting used to it. Leave him be. I'll go look for Koki."

"Okay, just watch where you-"

Martin gasped when Chris yelled out - a trap had sprung when he stepped on it and hauled him up into the uppermost levels of a tree to hang upside down. He bobbed for a bit like a ball on a rubber band.

A familiar laugh floated out over the brush line where the little clearing they were currently in ended. Donita stepped ominously out from behind the leafy cover with Dabio (and Koki, who was gagged and trapped in his grasp) standing just behind and to the side of her. She looked at the attending Kratts, saw Zach, frowned, looked up, saw Chris, and pouted.

"I was really hoping to snag Zachary with that," she complained. This utterly ruined the vague Dracula-like entry she'd just pulled off, which meant it had probably been accidental.

Martin stepped forward, but Dabio seemed to have anticipated that and held up his free fist. Encased in his fingers was a Kingfisher, chirping angrily and pecking at him to no avail. It was suddenly obvious why Koki wasn't struggling too much - any lack of cooperation on her part would result in the bird being squeezed.

"Bird in the hand, Martin?" Dabio asked darkly.

"Aw!" Donita smiled sweetly at him. "You remembered my pun."

Chris snorted from where he was, arms crossed and grinning. "Yeah, there's no way he came up with that on his own. It was too clever."

Donita crossed her arms and huffed. "I didn't tell him to say it; I said it earlier and he was actually paying attention."

"Wait," Zach chimed in after having snapped out of his initial shock. "WHO was that trap for again? Why would I be near the tree line? That makes no sense. I hate trees."

"Let that bird go, Dabio!" Martin demanded firmly.

Dabio looked confusedly between the woman in his arm and the bird in his adjacent hand. "Which one?"

Koki stamped on his foot for that.

Donita rolled her eyes. "He means well, dear," she apologized to her captive placidly.

"I don't handle sudden changes in gravitational orientation very well," Zach continued speaking as if no other conversations were going on. "Though it might have been worth getting caught in it if you were standing under me like that, Donita. I'd probably puke on you." Zach looked up to Chris and waved to get his attention. "Try that, Chris!" he suggested.

Donita hastily fled that immediate area with a little 'eep' and glared icily at Zach from her new and safer location. Dabio snorted as he tried to keep up with her panicked retreat but stopped quickly when she turned the glare on him instead.

"I'm fine thanks," Chris drawled. "So glad you're concerned, though..."

Martin shouted up at him next. "You ok, bro?"

"Yeah, I just don't have my pocket knife to cut this rope with," he complained. Then he looked 'up' and smiled. "I can see where Dabio's starting to get a bald spot from up here."

"What? Where?" Dabio dropped both of his prisoners and scrabbled at his hair to try and find the thinner area. Chris kept distracting him with little comments and directions while the Kingfisher fell to the ground and gasped and Koki knelt to scoop it up.

"Dabio!" Donita yelled just in time for him to reach down and snag Koki again. The Kingfisher, on the other hand, recovered and flew off from the gently cupped sanctuary she had provided it with her hands before he could grab it too. Donita pinched the bridge of her nose. "Don't you think I would have told you if you were going bald?"

"Oh..." Dabio winced and glared up at Chris. "I'll get you for that, tree-frog."

"Sorry Koki, I tried," Chris whined. "At least the Kingfisher escaped."

She mumbled behind her gag and kicked Dabio with a lot more fervor this time since he no longer had the bird to threaten her with. He made a noise like 'hergk' and had to balance mostly on his other foot for a while to remain upright.

Martin gave Chris a grin and then turned his attention to Donita, frowning and crossing his arms. "What are you doing here, Donita?"

She shrugged. "Oh, looking for some things. Inspiration," she indicated a Kingfisher that hadn't fled yet. "Companionship," she indicated Zach, who muttered 'Ah...  _NO_.' and went back to his doodling. "And a curvaceous figure to model my new Kingfisher-inspired line of beach wear!" Koki narrowed her eyes and muttered something behind the gag that everyone was pretty sure would have been impolite to say no matter the venue or company. "One of my models is sick and unable to perform and I don't have a backup. I need a replacement to fill her sandals and since I was here getting the birds anyway..."

Martin raised a brow. He wasn't surprised at all that she was stealing the Kingfishers, but Koki was a new target. "Why don't you just model it yourself?"

"Because I'm neither the right body-type nor color," Donita snapped. "The clothes are supposed to compliment the wearer as much as themselves, Martino. The best style on Earth is useless without the right model."

"Question," Zach asked blandly with his hand raised and everything. "How are you going to get her to model without the Pose-Beam?"

Donita gasped and stomped her foot angrily. "You haven't fixed it  _yet_?!"

"It got here SIX HOURS AGO!" Zach growled. He stood up and put down his data pad and crossed his arms. "It's like you people expect me not to  _sleep_  or something!"

Martin whirled on him and hissed. "What?"

Zach shifted nervously. "It's just another job," he defended. "I made it in the first place so repairs are naturally my area. I wasn't even going to work on it until my contract expired tomorrow."

Chris was bent and trying to reach the rope around his ankle keeping him suspended. He twisted like a monkey and tried to look at Zach and unravel himself all at once. "Who delivered it? Is that how she got here?"

"No: I didn't tell her anything! My Zachbots picked it up at her place and brought it- you put a tracker on it before they picked it up, didn't you?" he asked, going from defensive rant to arctic drawl mid-statement.

"Umm-hmm," Donita nodded smugly.

Zach rubbed his forehead and both Kratt brothers face-palmed. "If I could reach you I'd smack you," Chris complained.

"This is NOT my fault!" Zach snapped.

A sharp chirp made the Kratts turn in the direction the Kingfisher had gone and perched at a safe distance to see Donita's jet and the vacuum she used to gather animals sucking up any of the birds it could get near. The Kingfisher that had chirped to alert them was already gone - a lot of them had been taken during the conversation and the Kratts hadn't been expecting it because the three most likely pilots; Donita, Dabio, and Zach; were all right in front of them.

Donita grinned happily and pulled out a remote, which she used to lower Chris to a height Dabio could reach in order to snatch him up too. "And now that Gaston has gathered the little darlings for my show I'll be going now!"

"Gourmand is here too!?" Chris asked, exasperated. "You don't usually work with him!"

Donita crossed her arms and pouted at him. "Well, since you took my Zachary-"

"I am not your  **anything** , woman!" Zach seethed. "And I'm not fixing your Pose-Beam or setting up your stage or running security or anything until my current contract is complete, so let Chris go and... well, you can keep Koki but I think you might regret it."

Koki seemed pleased with that statement. There was a very good reason Zach usually kept Koki inside a container or cell of some kind when he caught her, or at least held firmly by some Zachbots at a respectable distance. She'd only had to get to him once during a confrontation for that lesson to be learned quite clearly. Black eyes take a very long time to clear up for anyone with skin as fair as Zach's was.

Martin snapped at him. "NO, she cannot have Koki!" Then he turned to Donita. "Look, I know you're really into fashion and all that and that's  _fine_  when you don't bring animals into it... but those Kingfishers are so badly endangered that there's only a hundred or so left in the whole world! If you sell even half of the ones we've released today then you'll put the entire species at serious risk of  ** _total_**  extinction." Martin put his hands up and held them together pleadingly, going so far as to try his puppy-dog eye routine. " _Please_ , try not to be a complete psycho in this one case? It really sucked when you took the Mantis Shrimp but at least they weren't endangered..."

"But you took them away from me anyway, didn't you?" she pointed out ruthlessly. "And cost me a fortune in windows in addition to the cost of the show that never happened, paying models for time they never worked, and compensating for tickets that were never used, and an entire fashion line that never got viewed! All that for creatures that are regularly consumed en-masse for supper anyway!  ** _I could have bought them at a pet store!_** " she shrieked furiously.

"Um..." Martin faltered.

"Shut up," she snapped, then flipped open her phone. "How many did you get, Gaston?"

"Just about twenty-five. The rest are in zoos and nature preserves. Unless you want to try stealing them we're not getting any more," he answered curtly. "Give me five and we'll call it even. I've got plans for 'em."

"Marvelous! Come pick us up, Darling." Donita flipped the phone shut again and bowed to Martin and Zach as her plane landed behind her, crushing an awful lot of trees in the process. "Just be sure you don't follow me this time, Martino. I'll keep Chris-Angelo close as insurance. You can have both him and Koki back after my show IF Koki does as she's told and there aren't any interruptions."

Zach stayed where he was, unsure of what to do. If even Martin wasn't moving there probably wasn't any chance of Zach accomplishing anything useful if he tried to help... not that he had to. This was definitely not in his job description.

Martin seethed at her. "And the Kingfishers?"

Donita examined her nails. "Breed more: these belong to us."

"It doesn't work like that!" Martin insisted urgently.

"Yeah!" Chris agreed fiercely. "There may not be enough to replenish the population  **now**  and taking a fourth of the entire gene pool away-"

Donita frowned and snapped her fingers. Dabio squeezed until Chris wheezed and stopped talking. "If there may not be enough to save them now then why are you bothering? At this point the pretty birdies could be scythed off the face of the Earth by one of nature's wayward  _sneezes_! At least this way they'll be appreciated and beautiful for a little while and be  _remembered_."

"Until next season," Martin stated like a crypt door slamming shut.

Chris gasped and joined in. "At which point you'll forget and so will  _everyone else_  while you parade your new line."

"Quiet, tree-frog" Dabio said, squeezing Chris again. Chris grunted and winced and seemed to wilt.

"Ta, Martino," Donita said blandly. "Zachary, give me a call when the Pose-Beam is fixed and I'll pick it up. If it's done before Showtime I'll double what I promised," she said cheerfully before disappearing behind a wall of pink painted metal as the hatch shut behind her.

"Chris!" Martin yelled, running forward until the plane was in the air and too far for him to reach it. "Koki..."

Zach stood somewhat dumbstruck. He felt terrible and didn't exactly know why. He hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't been even  _partially_  responsible for the creature kidnapping,  _definitely_  not responsible for the Chris and Koki kidnapping, and sort of even understood most of the Kratt brothers' speech on how sad it was that the birds were going to die out now. While those thoughts whirled around in his head like a land-hungry waterspout Zach was sufficiently distracted to not notice Martin advancing on him. This is why he shrieked in alarm when Martin yanked him up by his shirt and dangled him over the ground like a soon-to-be-discarded scarecrow.

"Hey! What did I do!?"

"You led them here!" Martin accused, red-faced and furious.

"At what point exactly did it become my job to make sure  _all of_  your enemies behaved instead of just behaving  _myself!_?" Zach demanded frantically, clawing at Martin's hands. "You can't hold me responsible for Donita and Gourmand!"

"She got here by tracking your Zachbots," Martin insisted. He lifted Zach a little higher and earned a panicked wail in response.

Zach didn't think Martin would actually do anything to cause permanent damage – if Martin was capable of it then it would have happened long before now. But damn it Zach didn't want to be hurt  _at all_  and Martin was in just the sort of mood and situation to hurt him a  _little bit_  even if it didn't involve a woman they had both slept with at some point.

"Donita could have figured out where we were by  _checking the news_  because of your stupid publicity stunt too!"" Zach yanked at Martin's hands to no avail and eventually settled for holding them and pulling himself up to lessen the pressure on his windpipe. His turtleneck was getting very tight as the stretched and strained fabric struggled to adjust to hold him upright. "Tracking my Zachbots was just easier! And how is it my fault she did it in the first place? I didn't tell her where I was any more than you guys usually do! She just followed me! I didn't  _help them do anything_!"

"You didn't exactly try to stop them either, did you? Even when they took Chris you didn't help him. You stood there telling jokes." Somehow the quiet and calm tones Martin had gotten to were more frightening than the frantic and dangerous ones.

Zach went still and swallowed. "I've been helping Chris for  _two days_ , remember? And I was serious about the puking on her thing.  _Believe me_  that would have worked." Martin's eyes narrowed a little more and Zach swallowed again. "What am I supposed to do against those three anyway? As if they will please not be  **jerks** while I'm working with you guys because it's inconvenient? There is a very limited number of Robots I can keep with me on the jet and it wouldn't have done much good if I called them, and as you and Chris just  _love to_  point out to me: I have the fighting skills of a  _tranquilized ferret_! What do you want from me, Blue Boy? Honestly: I'm curious. Tell me what I should have done! I'm listening!"

The blonde seethed silently and slowly, gently let the man down until he was standing on the ground again. Despite his fury and worry over his friend, brother, and the fate of an entire species; Martin had to admit that for the moment he had a severe targeting problem. While Zach continued to rant and rave Martin let go and stood passively while the clearly petrified man failed to notice he was no longer the center of attention. Martin stared in the direction Donita had taken Chris and Koki and his brow furrowed in worry.

Zach absentmindedly tried to pull his shirt back into a somewhat presentable arrangement, but Martin had held him up too long: the elastic fabric was permanently damaged and would have to be replaced. Despite nearly hyperventilating from the older Kratt's extremely  _successful_  intimidation tactic Zach Varmitech kept doing what he did best in high-stress situations: insist that it wasn't his fault. His usual ranting was only improved by the fact that he was actually correct this time.

" _I'm_  not the one that took your brother  _OR_  Koki  _OR_  those birds and I did  _nothing_  wrong by taking on a job that had nothing to do with you Wild Ratts! Even Gourmand didn't tell me what he was up to like he did with the Zebra-Donkey-Giraffe-Thingies! So I couldn't even tell you about it and for ONCE I'm not the bad guy here so you need to  _stop_  taking it out on me just because I'm the only one you can reach-"

"Your contract is over, Zach," Martin said flatly. He did decide to be a little sorry for scaring Zach this badly when the situation legitimately wasn't his fault but there were still past discretions to keep in mind. It had only aggravated him more than it should have that Zack had just said the names of three completely separate animals correctly whilst simultaneously being completely wrong about the animal he was actually referring to and STILL had to add 'thingy' at the end of it on reflex. It was a nostalgic reminder of their recent past in precisely the wrong way.

Not expecting this, Zach faltered. He cringed back at the look Martin gave him, misinterpreting the fierceness in it completely. "W-what? That's tomorrow. Just let me get back to the Tortuga and I can have Jimmy send Chris-"

The new Creature Power Suit would certainly have been useful in this situation. Zach had made  _so many improvements!_  But Martin didn't know about them, and if he did he might have been too insulted about the change to Aviva's original design to care. Martin waved his hand dismissively as he turned away and completely missed Zach's terrified leap backward because the motion had looked very much like a backhand that had simply missed its target.

"No. Your contract ends at either the specified date or when our regular inventor is once again available to work. Aviva will be here in an hour or two to take over for you. If it wasn't for some bad weather on the way here that the plane had to avoid she would have been here in time for my  _stupid publicity stunt_ ," he explained, short and to-the-point. "You're free to go back to whatever your  _real job_  is and I'll do mine. If I see you again it'll be on our usual terms – especially if it's at the events Donita and Gourmand are having tomorrow."

Without even looking in Zach's direction Martin started off on his rescue mission alone.

"But she's not even here yet!" Zach started before he could stop himself.

"Goodbye,  ** _Mr. Varmitech_** ," Martin bit out nastily, waving Zach off like a particularly persistent fly.

Zach wrung his hands and stared after Martin for only a moment before his usual instincts in these situations kicked in. "Fine," he muttered quietly and started off toward his jet. "I didn't want to help you anyway."

On his way Zach wondered if he had actually been fired. It certainly  **felt**  like he'd been fired. But there were no legal grounds for it and anyway there wasn't any proof for that if Martin thought there was! Zach was positive Chris hadn't snitched on him for the spying thing! There hadn't been enough time yet and Chris had actually seemed really nice about the whole thing when they talked about it last night. Zach had kept anything else that could possibly be used against him very much concealed, so he knew he was getting paid at least.

So why did it feel like he'd been fired!? He  _never_  got fired!

Maybe he'd just been… dismissed?

Hell; that sounded worse than being fired!

Failing to fulfill a contract was one thing; it happened. It happened  _all the time_. You were commissioned to create something nobody had ever tried to create before and you just couldn't do it. That was fine. The effort was never wasted because that was the best thing about inventing: you were always discovering new things even if what you set out to do wasn't what you actually accomplished.

Zach kicked at some stones and ignored the Zachbots that had met him halfway. Zach usually wore a tracker on him anywhere so he could summon his Zachbots to him no matter what was going on at the time, even if he couldn't speak. It came in handy when he was on a sneaky-type mission and couldn't talk out loud to request assistance. They must have sensed him coming and-

He paused.

"Why did you come here?" he demanded. "I didn't call you and I'm not in any sort of danger, so you had no reason to come out here!" The Zachbots regarded him as impassively as… robots. Zach glared at them. "You're malfunctioning! Go reboot," He commanded angrily.

They did so, leaving him to walk back. That was fine. He wanted to walk anyway.

Maybe that was why they came out? Because he normally perched on them and they carried him everywhere? That seemed really childish now that he thought about it, especially if it had gotten to the point of them anticipating it without his direct order. He hoped they weren't failing. If their programming was somehow deteriorating that was ok – he could simply reload their basic codes that he had used years ago at least and they would work just fine again. If it had taken them this long to deteriorate in the first place then he'd started out with a damned good code to begin with.

After coding DNA for those Wild Ratts, even with Aviva's guidelines in place, he had definitely improved his skills. He'd find the bug in his program and fix it if there was one. Zach didn't mind it when his inventions failed anyway. Not unless it was a failure that he'd already made on another invention and was making again. His failed inventions stood as examples that making mistakes wasn't the end of the world as long as you took the effort to pay attention and learn from them. The mental assortment of his failed inventions was at least fifty times bigger than the inventions that had succeeded, even remotely, and each and every one regardless of effective function had been a worthwhile experience.

The more he failed the more he learned. That was the  _point_. Each of his failures represented a lesson learned and yet another stepping-stone along the path to more successes. Inventiveness and creativity were a lot like Evolution in that respect, actually.

Zach grinned wryly as he thought about that. Nature had made such wonderful codes! They branched and looped and scattered and along the way they even became more efficient. If those codes were put in environments with more freedom they seemed to sort of explode: like what had happened during the Cambrian Age. They tried absolutely any variation they could manage because with more freedom and less competition at the upper levels it didn't matter if they tried weird things… and for a while those weird things worked better than the traditional ways of doing things.

Nature was a bit more ruthless in weeding out the failures, though. Zach kept his failures carefully catalogued just in case he discovered something from them at a later date. Some things were just too fascinating to destroy! When nature weeded out failures they went extinct. When Zach did it they just went into storage.

DNA and codes were basically the same thing, weren't they? Animals were essentially magnificent little machines, albeit in their own icky fleshy sort of way. Losing a whole code of that magnitude would be a terrible loss, so he thought he'd better get a sample from one of those Kingfishers before Donita caused a collapse in their gene pool. Once he started gathering things he had a habit of wanting the complete set. As that was impossible with things that were regularly ''scythed from the face of the earth' as Donita so succinctly put it by predatory competition, climate shift, natural disasters, and balls of ice falling from the sky at thousands of miles per hour… he'd better collect all the ones he possibly could while they lasted.

Zach was still going to make his own version of the suits, wasn't he? Of course he was! That and everything else! That had been the whole reason he'd accepted this contract in the first place; get to work on the Kratt's inventions firsthand and duplicate them. If he changed them  _just enough_  from the original then he'd have the legal definition of inspired rather than stolen on his side.

Once Zach got to his jet he paced and fretted and tried to wrestle his discomfort into submission.

Martin was wrong. Zach hadn't had a chance of doing anything to help in that confrontation. Not without his Zachbots at least. Still, his conscience wasn't quite pleased.

"I didn't think I had one of those," he muttered to himself.

He paced. It nagged at him. He reasoned that he hadn't done anything wrong and really meant it this time. Mental analysis and replay proved him entirely correct. He swallowed and pulled at his deformed shirt again, eventually just putting a different one on because Martin had ruined it treating Zach like a metaphorical chew toy. He tried to placate his still insistent conscience by inventing a few more animal-free products for his company and that wasted away a few hours until Zach got a text from Martin officially ended his contract because Aviva had arrived on the Tortuga.

That only seemed to make his nagging feeling more frantic.

Eventually Zach decided to beat it into submission with blatant contradiction.

He started copying down everything he could remember about the Teleporter into the computer, altered it as much as possible while still maintaining function ability and sent it to the Zachbot's collective central mind. Then he instructed those that were capable of it to recreate the design at his city base on the mainland. Zach would be using it. If his contract was over now, what was stopping him? Maybe he should have altered the design a little more than he did to be safe, but he was sure that the changes he'd already made would be more than sufficient to prevent any claims.

That done, Zach instructed other Zachbots at his city base to start incorporating some of the animal-inspired changes he'd been doodling since they didn't have anything else to do just then, and it'd be done long before he got back to survey their work.

Then, finally, he started fixing the Pose-Beam.

He DID have a job to complete for Donita after all… If she would let him in with his delivery then he could at least check to make sure Chris was still in one piece before the show. Zach didn't really envy anyone that had to spend the night in Donita's plane. He'd done it himself a few times. She'd make sure her model was comfortable but Chris was pretty much screwed in terms of comfort.

Zach put down his tools and fretted on the floor. The Zachbots near him started cleaning things that didn't need cleaning in an apparent effort to cheer him up. Zach had decided he would get this stupid machine fixed and show up at Donita's show. Donita would let him in: she had no reason not to now that his contract with the Kratts was over.

…

Aviva had surprised Zach this time. She'd put up her own damned inventions, her life's work, gambling on the off-chance that the Wild Kratts' infectious personalities would rub off on him and somehow earn her another ally in whatever battle she was fighting. Zach had to admit it'd been a good gambit on her part.

He was actually worrying about this.

Aviva officially had his respect from a villainous standpoint. She'd somewhat succeeded, if only with one of the Kratts' Team.

Maybe he could come up with a way to neutralize any debts he might have before leaving for good. If nothing else it might keep Aviva from calling in any claims when his new products hit the market.

Zach sighed and mentally analyzed how long it would take for his city-based Zachbots to complete their projects. The result almost coincided with the beginning of Donita's show, but closely. The woman had stalled for things as simple as a fussy model before: Maybe he'd have time.

**DAY 21**

"Dabio! Fetch my model! I need to take pictures," Donita motioned toward the area where she usually had her equipment and supplies behind a metal grid so they'd be securely tied down. It conveniently served as a great place to keep a disc-less Kratt brother and an unwilling model until show time.

"Oh, you'd better  _not_ ," Koki said flatly. She was already wearing the outfit Donita insisted she wear for the show. It had been easy to get her into it with the threat of turning a few multi-colored birds into Dabio's new stress-balls.

Her hair had been adorned with a ridiculously tiny top-hat that was intentionally sideways and adorned with three Kingfishers in decorative poses the likes of which might have looked very good on an old Victorian ladies' hat were it not for the multicolored metal bursts of wire that stuck out at all angles from below them like fireworks. The bathing suit was stylish, certainly, and definitely made for Koki's figure and color – Donita just couldn't have done it justice. This was mostly because there were strategic and patterned bits of the normal suit cut entirely missing and Koki's dark skin stood out in stark contrast to the bright, eye-searing colors. The almost completely transparent beach-coat she was wearing over it served absolutely no purpose that a similarly shaded pair of sunglasses wouldn't have.

"I will hurt you," Koki said firmly.

Dabio hesitated. "I don't wanna."

"What!?" Donita demanded.

"She's mean," he professed. "And she bit me."

"How is that different from the behavior of most models?" Chris asked curiously. He was sitting in the cell behind Koki and had been having trouble keeping his eyes otherwise occupied. His focus danced around like it had no clear idea of what was supposed to be interesting and what wasn't.

"Uhm…" Dabio faltered, as Chris's question had no really good answer.

Koki lunged when Dabio got barely to within her reach and he jumped back. "You started it, muscle-man! Come back over here and I'll finish it!"

Donita rolled her eyes. "Just let her out. We have a deal, remember? You don't squish the birds and she behaves."

Koki snorted. "Nuh-uh. I promised to put on this stupid outfit and take a walk on your stage, not pose for pictures."

Donita gave an offended wail. "But if I don't get pictures for the catalogue of the same model I had on the runway the ensemble won't sell as well!"

"Not my problem," Koki snapped. "And if you threaten those poor little Kingfishers again I won't do the walk  _at all_."

Donita pouted and looked to Dabio pleadingly, who rubbed the red line of dots on his hand and pretended not to notice. Donita sighed and aimed the camera anyway. She had learned the same lesson Zach had, albeit from watching and not by experience. Koki was one of those 'pity the kidnapper' captives.

"I'll just have to take pictures from out here and hope I can edit out the bars later," she conceded reluctantly.

"You do that," Koki grinned triumphantly, then put a hand on her hip and turned to face Chris, who abruptly decided the floor was extremely engrossing. " _You_  quit staring at my backside, Chris Kratt!"

"I only promise to  _try_ ," he offered.

Donita's phone rang and she paused in taking pictures to put it on speaker. Koki with her hand on her hip stuck-out like that was glorious. "Talk to me, darling," she prompted.

"The birdies are all ready save for the five you owe me, which I've got in my eatery."

"What do you plan to do with them? And how long will it take? This is going to be a very hard evening on Dabio and I-"

"It won't be for months yet," Gourmand answered. "Good things take time."

Donita put her camera away with three presentable pictures and lots of useless ones with Koki giving her raspberries, prowling behind the bars like a comical zombie, and one particularly interesting one with very rude gestures in it. "Months? What are you making?"

Gourmand's grin could be heard through the phone. "A variation on Ortolan."

"What's that?" Dabio asked.

"It's a technique that the Imperial Roman cooks used!" he said fondly. "First you keep the birds in a lightless box for a month or two and only give them figs, grapes, and millet until they fatten up to four times their normal size. Then, and this is the best part, you drown them in Armagnac so that when you bite into the body after roasting you get a  _bloom_  of liquor-flavored goodness once you get through to the lungs and stomach."

Donita winced a little. "Really?"

Gourmand nodded and hummed in pleasure imagining it. "I've made it before, of course, but when you use real Ortolans you can actually taste the succulent environment of the Mediterranean from the way the bird lived... it's like they're entire life contributes to the flavor. Using birds from an island paradise might completely change the taste. So it's not really the same dish because I'm swapping out the main ingredient."

Chris put his face in his hands and vowed he was getting those Kingfishers away from Gourmand if it was the last thing he did. Koki sat down next to him and tried to get him to calm down. "It'll be ok. Martin is gonna' get us out of here and Aviva should be here soon. We can take these three pestilent poachers."

"I hope so," Chris muttered.

Donita's phone rang again and she groaned. "What!?"

"Don't snap at me," Zach's tinny tenor complained immediately. "Do you want the Pose-Beam back or not?"

"Ah, you  _did_  get it done in time!" Donita said, switching instantly from vicious to gushing. "I knew I could count on you, Zachary."

"Shut up and open the hatchway," the phone lashed at her before the line went dead.

"…but maybe not four of them," Koki finished despondently. She winced when Chris seemed to sort of fold in on himself after that statement. "I'm sorry, Chris. You were really starting to like that little rat, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Chris admitted blankly. "I kinda' was."

* * *

 

When Zach walked into Donita's plane he tried not to immediately focus on Chris, which was easy because Koki was dressed like a small ocular explosion and rather drew the eye. He blinked twice, massaged the sting out of his abused retinas, and faced Dabio with a bored expression. "Where do you guys want it?" he asked, motioning behind him at the Pose-Beam his Zachbots were carting in gingerly.

"There," Dabio pointed to an empty area Donita had reserved for it earlier.

While the Zachbots set up the delivery their creator stretched and had to stop mid-way to draw back when Donita advanced on his wearing the smile that usually meant he was welcome to stay for breakfast tomorrow.

"Did you stay up all night to finish it for me?" she asked pleasantly.

"No," Zach drawled. "I stayed up all night finishing it for triple-time pay."

"Triple-time!?" She gasped. "I said  _double_  not triple!"

"I don't remember this," he drawled. And since they hadn't actually written it down anywhere that was entirely defensible.

"Dabio, did I say double-time or triple-time?" she asked.

Dabio shrugged and continued to strap down the machine so that taking off wouldn't jar it. "I don't remember, Donita. They were there, ask them," he said, indicating the prisoners.

Zach rolled his eyes. "Come on, they'll just agree with me to annoy you."

When Dabio and Donita turned to regard their prisoners, Zach scanned the room looking for something, spotted the enclosure where the majority of the Kingfishers were being kept, and motioned to his Zachbots.

Chris smirked. "Yes, I distinctly remember hearing triple-time. Koki?"

"I'd agree with double-time if she gives me those pictures back," Koki said flatly.

"Ah-hah!" Donita pointed triumphantly. "You  _did_  hear double-time!"

"No, I said I would  _agree_  that I heard it. That in no way means I  _actually_  heard it," Koki replied.

The Fashionista threw her hands up in exasperation. "Well,  _now_ how to we settle this?"

"You could just stop arguing and pay me," Zach snapped.

Donita groaned. "Unlike you, Zachary, not all of us have money to throw around to make our problems go away."

"Problems!?" he gawked.

"Umm-hmm.  _Big_ problems," she drawled. "Can we make another deal?"

Zach made a show of being distressed and aggravated while Donita bit her lip and waited for his answer. "I guess I can settle on double-time if you let Chris go early."

"Why would I do that, Darling?" she asked suspiciously. "And why would you want me to?"

Zach shrugged. "Because I owe him a favor. Now I won't. That's worth a night of my normal pay rate."

" _Thanks_ ," Chris drawled and tried to remember if that could actually be true. "But I refuse. Barter for the Kingfishers instead."

Dabio shrugged and took one of the birds out to offer it to Zach.

Zach looked at it strangely, then waved it off. "What would I do with that thing?"

"What would you do with Chris if you got him instead?" Gourmand asked flatly, wiping his hands on his apron as he came in.

"Tormenting waitresses seems to be one of his talents," Zach muttered. "At least that's entertaining."

"Really?" Donita laughed.

Koki smiled at the frustrated man in the cell with her. "I knew that one already."

"That's not helping," Chris complained.

Donita rolled her eyes. "Well you can't have Chris until after the show. You can have him back then."

Zach glared. "That's when you were going to release him anyway, so you still owe me triple-time. I'm not trading for nothing."

"No," the woman stomped. "I lost too much profit on the last show. I can't risk this one. Fine, Zachary. You'll get your triple-time, just not until after I've actually got it in the backlog."

Zach fumbled with his phone in his pocket. He frowned and looked back at Koki. "Not quite tall enough to be a model, is she?"

"Nope," Dabio agreed without thinking, then flinched when Koki sent him a look Zach couldn't see because Donita was in the way.

"Desperate times, darling," the woman sighed. "Were you staying for the show? I have a spare ticket if you want to buy it."

"I'm considering it," he answered. "Where are the rest of your models?"

"Out behind the stage," she said while motioning vaguely. "Dabio, go tell them they have fifteen minutes before my inspection."

"Okay, Donita," he said vapidly. As he was preparing to put the bird back in the cage he grinned and squeezed it one last time just to hear the squeak.

The Kingfisher squealed urgently in his grasp, longer and more frantic than the others, and Dabio let out a little 'oops' because he thought he might have overdone it. Chris and Koki drowned out any subsequent distressed birdie sounds with their shouting at him, but the single one had been more than enough to serve its karmic purpose.

That nagging feeling Zach had been ruthlessly quashing reared up to an attack position and set upon him like a mugger that'd been waiting for just the right moment to strike. It landed a killing blow.

 _It's just a bird_ , Zach thought to himself desperately through his initial daze. His eyes were focused on the fist, only a few feathers sticking out between Dabio's fingers.

 _But then, so is Chris as a Falcon_ , his conscience responded venomously.  _You thought it yourself_.  _No matter what form their bodies take on thanks to the Creature Power Suits Martin is still Martin and Chris is still Chris. Shape didn't matter. Who are we to say it can't **really**  feel?_

Neurons that hadn't had any exercise since Zach was knee-high flared to life and started shouting at each other for assistance deciphering something important and primal. In the same way someone hears a word in a different language and then their mind attaches it to a stored meaning for translation; those neurons replayed that squeak, metaphorically played telephone with it, and it registered at the very front of Zach's mind as a cry of pain just as real as any of his own would have been if Dabio were squeezing him like a stress ball.

Zach Varmitech's next thought shot straight from his subconscious to his mouth without bothering to ask the rest of him for permission first.

"STOP THAT! You're  ** _hurting it_**! It didn't even  _do_  anything to you!"

Dabio lifted a brow and stopped playfully squeezing the bird, which was thankfully still struggling to escape. Lucky his hands were too big to get a strong grip on such a small thing. Donita and Gaston were giving Zach looks of stunned disbelief that mirrored those of their captives. Aside from the bird's continued complaining it was one of those silences that still managed to be unbearably loud. A mutual all-around 'is this really Zach Varmitech speaking?' gawking truce commenced.

"Don't you get it!?" Zach demanded helplessly. "There's less than a hundred of these things left! That's all there's  _ever going to be_  if you sell them like sparkly rocks to the highest bidder! Your fashion line will be the best for precisely that many people –  _less than one hundred_  – for a single season and then never have value again because the birds you designed the clothes after  _no longer exist!_ It took nature  _billions of years_  of progress to code these birds from  _single-celled gunge_  one tiny beneficial error at a time and it  _isn't done yet_ , and you're just going to make  **baubles and birdie-bites**!?"

"Supply and demand, Darling. That's the  _point_ ," Donita said uneasily, sounding unsure of herself. "If something isn't rare it isn't worth imitating. What happened to your business savvy?"

Koki gave him a sad yet approving little smile.

"Zach?" Chris asked.

The moment was officially gone for Zach. He now looked wilted and defeated after his rant. He ran a hand over his face as if he'd just woken up and someone else had been pulling him around on marionette strings. The signal he was expecting from his city base was taking longer than he thought it was going to and he had to stall somehow, because he wasn't a fighter.

"I just..." he whined. "I don't know what to  _do_."

"You're still under contract aren't you? I don't know what they're paying, but you've clearly been brainwashed. You have two options, Zach." Gourmand said patiently while Zach stared at them in horrified incomprehension. "Join us now or go sit in the cell with your nature-loving friends."

"Or run," Dabio suggested hopefully. "Then I can chase you before I put you in there with them. I like that part."

"They are NOT my friends!" he snapped reflexively, but relented when he felt the prickle of Chris's continued stare on the back of his neck. "Well,  _she's_  not," he corrected. Koki frowned and blew a raspberry at him, the instant of approval he'd earned shattered.

"Tick-Tock, Varmitech," Gourmand pressed.

Out of patience, Donita huffed. "Oh, forget it. Dabio, put him in the cell," she ordered blandly. "At least this way I don't have to cough up a check."

"Hey!" Zach whined.

"Okay, Donita." He put the gasping bird back in the cage, then advanced on Zach.

"Wait!" Zach wailed with both his hands out in a defensive gesture. Not long now. It couldn't be long from now. His estimates on construction were usually very good, to the minute. Dabio gave Donita a questioning look, and then paused at her nod.

Zach backed up, giving Chris a quick look that the Kratt just couldn't analyze. "You're not even going to let me  _try_  to fight?" he pleaded.

All three villains laughed. "Oh, this is  _precious_! You're not going to abandon them?" Donita fawned. "I'd be impressed at this newfound bravery, if it wasn't stupid too. You? Fight  _Dabio_!?"

Evan Koki and Chris groaned in reaction to this.

Humiliated, Zach stamped his foot and stood straighter. "Yes! I'm going to fight Dabio!" he insisted.  _I'm just not sure how yet_ , he added mentally.  _No, I have no real chance, but they don't all have to be so damned **positive** about it!_

Donita motioned to her henchman. "Do you mind, Dabio? Sorry but I simply MUST see this. Try not to damage him too badly, will you?"

"Okay, Donita," the muscle-man shrugged and began to walk toward Zach.

Zach faltered and backed up a couple steps as Dabio's shadow began to fall over him. "Don't I get a weapon?" he hazarded. Grinning, Gourmand tossed him a wok, which Zach miraculously managed to catch before it would have hit him in the face. "Thanks…" he drawled.

Dabio cracked his knuckles loudly and Zach lifted the wok like a baseball bat, or he would have if he'd ever played baseball. He couldn't possibly have held it less correctly without holding the pan end instead of the handle.

"Um…" Chris began in an effort to help.

"Shut up!" Zach snapped. To his credit his flinch was barely visible when Dabio took a stance within striking distance. Zach's expression would have looked entirely justified on a rabbit that had instantly realized DODGE was the perfect name for what was heading toward it.

Koki sighed. "We're doomed, aren't we?"

"Shut UP!" Zach demanded hotly. There was a tense pause while Zach waited for the fight to begin. He would be the first to admit physical violence was absolutely not one of his skills. About the only things he had on Dabio was brains and speed, which would hopefully be all he needed.

A mongoose can still out-maneuver a snake if it either gets or successfully dodges the first strike.

"You first," Dabio said obediently. "Donita wants to see you try."

Though the snake isn't usually stupid enough to  _let the mongoose go first_ …

Zach frowned, and then grinned manically when he felt the little vibration in his pocket that indicated a text message had come through. He couldn't exactly call back, though, so he needed his remote.

" _Fine_. See this pan, muscle-brain?" he asked, waving it a little.

"Yes," Dabio grinned. "I see the pan." Despite the fact that Zach was holding it high over his head, it was at Dabio's eye-level. The hulking blonde was clearly trying very hard not to laugh.

"Good!" Zach snapped. While the man's gaze was otherwise occupied, Zach kicked out viciously and planted the hardest blow he could manage to Dabio's groin. "But you really should have been watching  ** _me_**!" he shouted behind him as he fled toward the cell, fumbling with his remote in the process in one hand while keeping the wok in the other.

Dabio collapsed, Donita shrieked her rage, and both Gourmand and Chris were momentarily paralyzed by a sympathetic cringe. This afforded Zach just enough time to smash the circuitry panel on the wall for the storage area's locks with the wok and get a better grip on his remote. Despite his frantic scrabbling Zach vaguely realized Koki was cheering him on. He'd try to remember that.

He pushed the correct call button and issued a shrill command, "ZACHBOTS! DEFEND!"

"What are you doing!?" Chris demanded. "There aren't any  _here_! Open the cell before-"

Donita got to Zach once her shock abated. She grabbed a fistful of his hair, shook him like a wrinkled scarf, and slapped him four times savagely until the dazed man dropped his remote to clutch at his abused face. "You'll pay for that little victory  _with interest_ , Zachary." The hand not in his hair latched onto his shoulder and made him screech. "Kudos on the trickery, but boo on the plan. How long do you suppose it'll take your precious Zachbots to actually  _get here_?"

She gaped and whirled around when twenty of them appeared behind her heralded by a shower of blue static.

Clearly Zach had made some changes. Contrary to what the villains seemed to believe, Zach HAD learned something working for the Kratts: how to manipulate animal traits to his advantage. The Zachbots he used specifically for attack and defense had been altered in shape and painted with a brilliant Aposematic Signal pattern humans naturally associated with pain to strike fear into those facing them.

They looked like gigantic, evil hornets. To add a little realism, they also had the appropriate number of limbs. As they were still Zachbots that only meant they could hold more accessories: the kind of accessories that welded, riveted, bent, cut, and formed raw steel into Zach's inventions. As a visual threat it worked very well, except for the one Zachbot near the back comically holding black and yellow cans of spray paint and big cardboard stencils. It was only halfway painted and almost, as far as Zachbots had expressions, seemed startled to be there.

"There seems to be a delay over long distances..." Zach answered when his daze from the blows began to wear off. He pulled the hand on his face back only briefly, and then replaced it with a wince. Several drops of red fluid dribbled onto the floor underneath him.

The horde of Zachbots actually seemed to get  _angry_  when they realized their creator had been injured, or at least had been programmed to reflect 'attack' body language in that situation. They descended on the now scrambling villains like a well-coordinated swarm; quickly and with a lot of loud buzzing caused by those with saw-like tools. The bot holding paint was the only one Gourmand dared to attack directly, but he changed his mind when it spontaneously discovered the art of practicing graffiti on human beings.

Donita dropped Zach like a dead mouse and fled back to her seat, where her Pose-Beam remote was already being crushed into useless scrap.

"Thief," Koki hissed at him while Zach scrambled to get the door on the cell open by hacking the now opened console one-handed. "I know that static anywhere! I KNEW you'd end up stealing something."

"I don't HAVE TO save you," Zack drawled. "OR your critters."

Koki wilted. "…shutting up now."

Chris grinned and leapt out of the cell, pausing for an instant to note Zach was still holding the left side of his face. "You ok?"

" ** _Get the birds_** ," Zach snarled.

He hesitated. "Will your bots attack me, too?"

Zach shook his head. "No. As far as they're concerned you're still clients."

"Right." Chris leapt to open the cage. To his amazement the Zachbots not chasing enemies herded the birds toward each other and used miniature pose-beams to safely immobilize them. Three bots was all it took for the beams to encompass them all in a collective field. "Take these birds back to the sanctuary in Guam," Chris ordered hopefully. It wasn't too far from here and he knew those robots could travel long distances when they needed to.

When they obeyed Gourmand nearly attempted to jump out the window after his main ingredient and got stuck when his belly prevented him fitting through the unbroken window he'd chosen. The pursuing Zachbot used the opportunity to paint kissing smiley-faces on his backside.

Chris grinned as he came back toward the cell, and then stopped dead. "Zach?"

Koki had just managed to coax Zach to take his hand off away from his face. There were five long, jagged gouges where Donita had shorn the flesh off with her nails. No wonder Zach had been keeping his hand there. It probably felt like he was holding his skin on.

A Zachbot came by and promptly began tending the injury, which Zach gratefully allowed without complaint despite the reflexive tears nobody could stop when facial tissue was damaged. Zach's eerie calm throughout only seemed to make it worse. It was strange. Zach always made a childishly big deal out of small injuries like barely noticeable paper-cuts… so why was he now shut up like a clam? That was probably worth looking into later, Chris decided.

The Zachbot examined its master's face and moved on, carefully cutting down the turtleneck that was darker than it ought to be now that Chris focused on it, to reveal similar injuries on his shoulder.

Zach's part in the adventure was clearly done and he paid little attention to anything else. Dabio tried to limp toward him for revenge over the cheap shot earlier but failed when a literal wall of giant hornets blocked his path. Short of complete destruction the Zachbots weren't allowing anything near Zach except themselves and the identified not-enemies.

Chris and Koki suddenly felt very useless. The creatures had been rescued, the Zachbots had their enemies under control, and trying to help Zach would only be an impediment. While the general chaos unfolded behind them Koki gave Chris a look that had precisely the same amount of fury in it as the Zachbots' redesign. There was blood on her hands.

She did NOT like Zach. Not personally. That was unlikely to change over this event or anytime soon unless he started actually being more, well… like-able. Still - he'd had no reason to come back for them but did it anyway.  _Friends_  didn't so much matter as being on the  _same team_  did. Loyalty was on the line here.

"No," she seethed. "Just…  _NO_. Zach may be a  _Rat_ , but he's a  _Wild Rat_! At least right now! Right?"

"Right," Chris wholeheartedly agreed, ignoring Zach's annoyed protesting on that point.

"Not anymore, you know," he drawled. "Aviva's back."

"Then  _why are you here_?" Koki demanded, throwing her arms up in the air.

Zach snorted. "Because I am an idiot."

Chris clenched a fist and took a breath. "I think that's why we're all here, really. Can we go back to the Tortuga now?"

The Zachbots ignored Zach's order twice before obeying. Chris got the impression they were stalling to get the bandages on their creator properly before letting him move.

* * *

 

"I wish you'd at least let me see," Aviva demanded hours later when they were back at the Tortuga. She had tried vehemently to convince Zach to go to the hospital for his face, but eventually had to admit that his Zachbots were likely just as skilled as the average human doctor for something this simple and Zach didn't exactly like being manhandled by people he didn't know. There was only one doctor Zach actually listened to and she was in an entirely different hemisphere right now. "I'm usually the medic here."

Koki shrugged. "Let him be."

Zach lay back in Martin's borrowed chair; surrounded by black cushions, getting pampered by his robots, and exuding the sort of pleased narcissistic atmosphere spoiled cats do when they're sunning themselves on the newspaper you are actively trying to read. "It doesn't matter anyway. For once Donita's actually likely to wind up in jail. I guess it helps to be surrounded by a moat of lawyers," he teased Chris placidly. Chris merely smiled back.

"How did you manage that, anyway?" Martin asked. "We've tried it about a hundred times."

Zach shrugged. "She's actually going to be tried for assault. There were bits of her specially blended nail polish imbedded in my face, not that she tried to deny attacking me. I didn't manage to get her on the poaching, so she won't be there for long." He took a sip of his coffee. Chris had been too grateful for the rescue to insist on decaf and anyway Zach wasn't technically under contract with them anymore.

"You didn't have to do that," Martin said gratefully. "I'd like to know why you did, though-"

"I'm sure you would," Zach grumbled and abruptly changed the subject. "Did the birds get back to the sanctuary okay?"

Aviva nodded. "Yes. They're really stressed after their ordeal, but they all made it back. Your Zachbots scared the Rangers, though. They initially opened fire. I think some of the bots are damaged."

Zach shrugged and made a sound like 'nyeh'.

As Aviva and Koki checked up on the birds, and Martin hovered around Aviva, Chris went over to Zach. "Do you think that'll scar?" he asked quietly.

Zach appeared to mull this over and put his hand over the bandage on his face. "Probably. The one on my shoulder is deeper, too. Why?"

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't do it," Zach replied sensibly.

Chris scratched his neck nervously. "That happened because you came back for us."

Zach didn't argue that. He glanced behind Chris toward the screen where Martin's arms were enveloping Aviva. "I know my contract is over," he started, "but the suite on Rota is still paid for. You can stay there until this whole thing blows over."

Chris looked behind him. He smiled. "I probably don't need to. I'm doing… not great but sort of OK watching them together." He then looked back at Zach and saw something unexpected.

It might have been simple brooding to anyone else. Chris knew better, though. Zach's eyes had gone strange; blank and intense at the same time and not focused on anything in particular. Clearly he was thinking very hard about something and when Chris stood up again Zach lowered his head in a way Chris was very familiar with. Zach wasn't nodding or trying to hide his face. This was something else entirely. It looked like the way horned animals lower their heads when deciding if they should attack or defend.

Chris thanked nature and his experience in working out the needs and feelings of things that either couldn't or wouldn't talk to him. Zach probably had no idea his body language was so blatant.

"Someone should stay with you, though, in case you have a concussion or something," Chris said firmly. "Donita did hit you pretty hard."

Zach gave him an open, startled look. Chris waited for the arguments. He waited to hear that Zach didn't have to be here since the contract was over, that the Zachbots were more than capable of handling Zach's medical care and would have alerted him to any major problems, that their truce was over, that he didn't trust them, or that the Tortuga was 'icky', or that he didn't want to stay on Rota anymore since there was nothing for Zach to actually do there but hide under umbrellas on the beach and avoid the walrus-man.

Zach looked back down at his cup and angled it to swirl the contents. "Don't you want to take the time to patch things up with your friends?" he challenged acidly. "I was expecting a cutesy celebration or something now that you're not fighting anymore."

"That's not  _entirely_ solved," Chris insisted, ignoring Zach's nasty tone and trying to maintain calm himself.

"So?"

"Let me stay one more night in the jet. Or you stay here. Or we'll stay in the resort since we have to help get the Kingfishers calmed down and settled all over again. It doesn't matter. Just don't leave yet."

Zach turned suspicious. "Why?"

"Because I don't want you to be an enemy anymore," Chris said bluntly. "For an entirely different reason than everyone else did. You almost called me your friend back there, didn't you?"

"I did  _no such thing_ ," Zach defended petulantly. "And I don't have friends."

"You have  _one_ ," the younger Kratt insisted. "Maybe you don't want to be mine, and that's okay because you're not a trusting person and I didn't realize before how much that might be totally justified given your usual company and experience," he hovered his hand over the bandaged shoulder and smiled a little when Zach actually let him rest it there. "But I still want to be yours. All I'm asking is that you let me try."

"I promise nothing," Zach hissed.

**THE DAY AFTER**

When Chris woke up the next morning and Zach was gone he was surprised that he was surprised, then surprised that he hadn't thought to stay up in the event of this very possibility.

The only way Varmitech could have left without Chris noticing is if he'd done it while Chris was asleep, and only if he had been deliberately trying to leave without being noticed. Chris was a light sleeper unless he was in a hammock, at which point the natural sensation of being cradled rendered him useless on a positively Jimmy Z level until literally tipped out of it. He had been in the floor in a sleeping bag near Zach, who had remained in a miniature fort of cushions and pillows in Martin's chair; Zach had the odd ability to sleep sitting up unless he was disturbed by light. The sleeping mask had been on quite tightly and Chris had been certain he wouldn't be disturbed.

When the rest of the Kratts had finally gone to sleep Zach had already been out for hours with foam stoppers in his ears and an amount of coffee in his system that would have made everyone suspicious of it if not for it smelling distinctly... Irish.

Maybe that was what made Chris so confident Zach would stay the night. Painkillers + Whiskey = Dead to the World. Usually.

Then again, Chris wasn't certain what the tablets had actually been. Chris wouldn't put it past the crafty man to have taken sugar pills to make his escape easier, or simply to have told the Zachbots to smuggle him out, conscious or not, after everyone was in REM and not likely to wake while they did it.

Either way; Zach had left and it really, really bothered Chris because he wasn't sure his words had gotten through to his long-time rival the night before. If Zach hadn't believed a word he'd said there was very little chance of Chris getting the opportunity to say it again any time soon, if at all, and a single battle could undo weeks of close-quarters interaction by solidifying yet another stupid grudge.

He was just about to try calling the man on his Creature pod when an angry cry of, "ZAAAAAAACH!" roared up from the corridor leading down below and Chris ran to see what was going on.

What was very nearly a Wild Kratts collision stopped just short of an accidental dogpile outside Aviva's private laboratory. She was standing in the doorway and shaking her head with a hand over her eyes.

"You ok?" Martin asked in concern.

"That was pretty good for someone that couldn't talk two weeks ago," Jimmy commented. "Zach must have really ticked her off."

Aviva growled, sighed, then giggled helplessly after a moment and gestured inside, moving out of the way so they could see. None of them had ever actually been inside Aviva's private laboratory but they were relatively certain it wasn't supposed to like  **that**.

Above the main monitor was a sign. It was simple, red with black words, and stated in business-like letters, " _Your list was too short. I got bored._ "

Below it, completely obscuring the floor and most any solid surface possible of sitting on, were  _several hundred_ origami figures of robots, vehicles, geometric shapes, vases, snowflakes, instruments, and basically  _anything else_  you could possibly fold out of paper that was not in any way an animal or plant strewn just... everywhere. They were clearly made out of Aviva's now properly backed-up plans and would take a massive amount of time to unravel and put back in order if the Kratts didn't want to just reprint them all and waste paper - which Aviva absolutely would not do after the backup book fiasco.

These were the  _originals_ , damn it, and she was keeping them. Given the differences in the size and color in each item the papers Zach had used to make them had been deliberately scrambled as much as he could possibly manage so that just the sorting itself would be as arduous and frustrating as he could possibly make it. The message. loud and clear, was;  _"You wasted my time, so I'm going to waste yours."_

Koki's jaw dropped. "I'm not sure if I should be pissed or impressed! How on Earth did he manage to do all that so fast!?"

"The Zachbots probably helped," Martin sighed.

Aviva finally took her hand off her face and smiled wanly. "I'd be madder if he'd actually damaged them. This is just annoying." She paused to think. "Aside from the breaking into my lab part."

Chris just leaned back against the wall and laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are now done with the 'Forced Interaction' bit of the story! Moving on to better things shortly!


	9. People are a Problem

People are a Problem

"People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people." ~Terry Pratchett,  _Maskerade_

* * *

 

"Good morning," Chris said pleasantly.

Zach looked at him blankly; the image of the world seeming to filter through to him like it was going through a film or several layers of sticky tape. Eventually, though, he blinked and he whined and put his free hand on his head and groaned like he had just found a suspicious paper bag on fire on his doorstep instead of another human being.

"What?" the thin man asked tiredly. The hand not holding the door open scratched at his injured shoulder absently until a small wince indicated he'd realized what he was doing and he stopped. "The meeting isn't until eleven so if you're from Unitgreen… our meeting isn't until eleven."

Chris raised a brow at the random company name and astoundingly accurate schedule comprehension despite the horrid verbal capability. He had actually expected something like this. It was seven a.m. and Zach's automaton minions didn't make coffee until seven thirty or eight, depending on when their master stumbled out of bed. That had been a hard lesson but one Chris had eventually accepted: Zach without caffeine was a rubber-band-brained man that was useful for nothing except whining about his lack of coffee and mentally walking in metaphorical circles. It was as if the caffeine he ingested on a regular basis activated his brain cells like the chemical was a set of cerebral jumper-cables.

Chris sighed and held out the large dark-roast (cream, no sugar) he had bought on the way here. Zach took a few sips on auto-pilot before his neurons started functioning adequately enough to allow facial recognition. After a couple of moments the blinks took on a somewhat more focused caliber.

"Green Guy..?"

"Yes," Chris answered bluntly, leadingly. "You shouldn't drink things people give you before you've identified them, you know."

"The drink or the person?"

Chris faltered. "Umm… Either?"

"Did I leave something in your giant turtle or mistime one of my vouchers or give you any sort of sign that you were welcome to visit me at home?" Zach asked cautiously.

Chris scratched his neck nervously. "Well, no. But-"

Zach tried to shut the door on him but Chris stopped it with one arm and walked in anyway.

"Heeeeeey!" Zach complained unsteadily and still in his mildly sleep-addled state. He grumbled to himself unintelligibly and followed the younger Kratt deeper into the entryway.

"You're not at home, Zach. We're still on Rota. And you did tell me I was still allowed to come back to the resort, remember?" Chris said blandly.

Zach rubbed his eyes and looked around when he was properly in focus. "Oh. Nevermind then."

Chris looked around at the eerily clean space that had merely been tidy when they got there yesterday and shrugged. He got the feeling the sheets and towels were new and not the ones they'd been supplied with, though given the fact that this was likely a honeymoon suite he certainly couldn't fault that one. "Besides, the lady at the desk seemed happy to see me. I think she does a few different jobs here and got worried when you came back without me at 2 this morning. She probably assumed I was dead."

"I wondered why she looked at me like that…" Zach mused with a little smile.

Chris turned to cross his arms at Zach while the man suckled at the gifted mug like a pacifier. He looked so muddled that if this were a cartoon Chris would expect a little bundle of bubbles to be floating over his head. He would have taken Zach to the hospital on suspicion of a lingering concussion from Donita's attack if he hadn't seen exactly the same thing occur every morning for roughly the past three weeks.

"You wouldn't be so out of it if you hadn't decided to sneak out while I was asleep," Chris accused hotly.

"Yes I would," Zach argued blandly. "This is exactly why I don't have meetings before nine. Zach-brain-not-work-before-eight. Not unless I've been up all night anyway and never entered actual sleep mode."

Chris considered this based on evidence of actually working with the man. "Okay, maybe you would be… but you shouldn't have left like that."

Zach seemed legitimately perplexed by this. "Why not?"

Chris arched a brow and crossed his arms when that first gesture didn't seem to cause Zach any sort of concern. "Because you're  _hurt_  and you left without  _telling anyone_  and we owe you one for the rescue and-"

"Keep in mind I'm still half-asleep. Will you please just tell me exactly why you're mad at me?" Zach asked. "Or at least wait until I'm aware enough to figure it out?"

Chris pinched the bridge of his nose and took a calming breath. "Okay. That's fair. First tell me why you left."

"I wasn't aware I needed your permission to leave," the other man yawned sarcastically, going to sit on the sofa. "If you must know it seemed very unwise to sleep in the enemy's headquarters."

Chris threw his arms up. "We're not enemies!"

"That's true for me and you at the moment; not anyone else that was in there," Zach pointed out. "And my Zachbots are now aware of that."

Chris sighed. "So they're OK with me being near you, but any of my friends are on the potential threat list."

"The entirety of the world except a few select individuals is currently on that setting," Zach snorted. "You don't have to sound so offended. There is no potential threat list. There's only a list of who is  _not_ a threat."

That thought made Chris somewhat uncomfortable and he sat down next to Zach on the sofa. "How many people are on that list?"

"You, my mother, occasionally Donita and Dabio when I decide to stay there for the night –and even then they're only on a moderate setting and the Zachbots still monitor me, and once or twice I've had to change the settings because they can't tell the difference between someone that simply happens to  _have_ a weapon and someone that intends to  _use it_ ," he explained placidly. "Conceal Carry around my Zachbots is like playing bodyguard bingo."

"Yeesh," Chris winced. "That must be fun. What do they recognize as a weapon?"

"The obvious guns, knives, blunt instruments waved in my general direction; etcetera… they also reacted once at a Teppanyaki restaurant." Zach sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "I don't think I'm going back there again."

Chris chortled and tried to feel bad for the chef at the same time, failed, and settled for laughing. "How many places are you never going back to again, because it seems to me you embarrass yourself pretty often because of the Zachbots."

Zach frowned. "It's a fair trade for how many times they've been  _right_ ," he said simply. "And you haven't told me why you're mad at me."

"I was worried," he said. "I know it's probably weird to be worried about you leaving, but I was afraid you might have freaked out about the friends thing and just decided to, erm…"

"Turn tail and run?" Zach suggested wryly.

Chris thought answering that honestly would be unwise, so he decided to change the subject instead. "Aviva discovered your little art project this morning."

Zach snorted and put down the now empty cup. A Zachbot gave him another cup then brought one to Chris. "Hopefully it'll keep her busy for at least as long as it took me to pull it off. Cream?"

"They're going to get me addicted to caffeine," Chris complained as he allowed the addition to his cup. "Aren't they?"

"One cup a day won't kill you."

"No, but it'll make me cranky on the days when I'm out in the middle of the forest or desert and can't get my daily fix," he said reasonably. "People who regularly sleep in trees shouldn't rely on stimulants in order to wake up."

Zach motioned to the bot, which produced a cup of dark tea instead and took Chris's coffee back. "Try that. It's my coffee substitute. Jimmy suggested it for when I want something hot in the evenings but actually need to sleep soon."

Chris did and recoiled a little when the bitter and oddly sweet stuff assaulted him. "Dandelion root?"

"Yeah. It's a little weird at first but not bad. It's supposed to be good for me too, but I never really bought into that herbal remedy thing," the pale man mused.

They then lapsed into a comfortable silence while they drank and stared out the window at the ocean. After a little while Zach seemed to be dozing a bit and Chris poked him in the shoulder so he wouldn't drop his cup.

"How can you sleep after two cups of coffee?"

"I have a resistance due to frequent exposure," Zach retorted. "How long are you guys staying on this island?"

Chris blinked. "I didn't think to ask that. I'm not sure if we have an appointment anywhere else, and we tend to hang out for a little while after we swear in new Kratts Kids recruits to help them set up their communication system. We rely on them to let us know about poachers and help us with animal research for the areas they live in, and to spread the word about conservation in their neighborhoods."

"See, that's a creepy level of interaction with unsupervised children," Zach said blandly. "And I'm not even a parent."

Chris rolled his eyes. "Their parents have access to the system too and get weekly reports on their kids' activity so it's definitely NOT unsupervised."

Zach just shrugged and stared out the window again. He shifted uneasily and his hands clenched several times as if he was resisting scratching a particularly maddening itch.

"Are you alright?"

"I usually don't take much pain medicine and these bandages are scratchy," Zach explained. "So I'm trying to ignore that while I talk to you."

"That's… kind of surprising," Chris said.

Zach reacted so childishly to most injuries. Now Chris remembered how he had gone pretty blank yesterday when Donita had struck him. It  _must_  be painful; jagged cuts always were in comparison to clean ones, and Chris would know after dealing with animals so much. Considering how long it'd been since the injury occurred he would be in the inflammation phase of healing just now and it was only bound to get worse as the day progressed. No wonder the man was fidgeting if he wasn't taking anything for the pain.

"Why don't you take pain medicine?" he asked.

"I seem to have a very unfortunate natural resistance to the effects unless I take massive doses, but by that time it makes my head feel fuzzy. I don't like it when I can't  **think** ," Zach hissed that last part firmly. "It's the only thing I'm  **good at**. So if it isn't really vital that I take pain medicine I tend to stay away from the stuff completely." He then gave Chris a worried look. "I don't talk this familiarly with people often either. I'm getting lost trying to continue the conversation."

Chris smiled and shook his head. "We don't have to talk, you know. We can just hang out."

"I never really understood that phrase."

"You never hang out with anyone? I've seen Donita and Dabio lounging around in the background when you're working together all the time," Chris pointed out.

"Yeah, but they're always  _doing_  something," Zach stated. "The key word there is 'working'. We're not trying to be companionable - we're just doing our jobs in the same general area."

"That's hanging out," Chris explained. "But it's work-related. Normal hanging out with friends is just being in the same place and doing what you normally do."

Zach snorted. "So I could be tinkering with my inventions while you read and we wouldn't really be  _interacting_  at all but since we're doing our own things in the same place we're still hanging out."

"Exactly," Chris agreed. "And how do you know I like to read?"

"I pay more attention than you might think," he said. "And you do too, apparently, if you're going out of your way to explain that it isn't my job to try and entertain you. I guess this won't be as hard as I thought."

"At least until we have a disagreement," Chris mused. "But I think we can handle it. Somehow I get the feeling I won't have a problem separating you and your actions from your company and its actions in my head."

"Good. Not everything is my decision," Zach grouched flatly.

"Who's Unitgreen, by the way?" Chris asked. "You said when I walked in that you have a meeting-"

Zach swore and stood up in a mild panic. "What time is it!?"

"Seven thirty. Calm down," Chris laughed. "And your meeting isn't until eleven. You said it twice in the same sentence. Since the closest thing to an office building on this little island also sells used furniture I'm guessing it's a conference call thing. Unitgreen sounds familiar though. What do they do?"

Zach sat back down and let out a breath. "They handle organic farming and stuff. I sent them a concept of my vertical aeroponic farming plans and they want a full presentation. I guess I owe you for waking me up early because all I have right now is the few notes I actually sent them. It's not enough to sell the whole concept."

Chris balked. "You're selling it!? Doesn't it require your invisibility technology to work?"

"Oh, I'm not selling THAT, just the layout and concept of the farm," Zach defended. "They'd have to pay me to use my invisibility tech and the robots I'd build to be the automated workers. Why?"

"I don't think you should sell the concept at all," Chris advised. "Just because it's Eco-friendly doesn't mean the profits would be poor. You should cooperate with them in the venture but still maintain a portion of the patent, and take their advice when presenting the product to the public because they'd know more about the niche market involved than you do."

Zach gave the younger Kratt a grudgingly respectful look before grumbling. "It's just a doodle I drew up when I was bored! How profitable could it be? What do you know about large-scale business anyway?"

Chris crossed his arms defiantly. "Superman was created by two people that couldn't possibly have predicted the long-term fame of the character, so they sold the rights to Detective Comics for a hilariously small amount given the royalties the comic eventually got out of him. A lot of it was because Superman was both an immigrant trying to belong in a land he wasn't born in, which had a HUGE psychological connection to a lot of the American population, and rose from a simple life as a farmer in a small town to international acclaim, which is one of the 'American Dreams' that people aim for. How do you know the popularity or cultural impact of  _your_  doodles won't explode in a similar way for complicated reasons you don't quite understand because you're not part of the target audience?"

"You're actually good at this!" Zach grinned at him brightly.

Chris smirked. "Hey, better farming and production methods are a huge part of environmental protection."

Zach put his coffee down and held out his hand for a shake. "Okay, you're hired."

Chris choked on his tea and balked. "What?"

"I need a consultant for my new products," Zach said plainly.

" _What_  new products?" Chris asked, feeling like he'd been tazed without provocation.

"The ones I've been inventing since I started working with you guys. A whole new product line of things for the environmentally concerned," he explained. "You've already looked at a lot of them."

Chris grinned. "I didn't think you were actually going to  _make them_!"

Zach pouted. "Why not?"

"I meant that's a  _good_ thing, Zach!"

"Oh…"

"So, how can I help?" Chris asked pleasantly.

Zach stopped to think. He hadn't really heard that question and known the person asking honestly meant it, not  _recently_  anyhow. "I'm not sure what the job will entail just yet. You'll have to wait until after I present the idea before I can draft a contract for you. This isn't going to be like any other consultant position I've needed before."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm flying blind in this market," Zack said flatly. "I really have no idea how to cater to this market properly. Tree-huggers tend not to like me on principle."

Chris regarded him carefully, wondered if he should comment on that, decided against it, then motioned to the laptop Zach had left to charge on the desk. "Why not let me help with the presentation to start out?"

"Yeah, alright. I guess you'll know the best way to present it to them since you're on the same emotional wavelength," Zach admitted. "I've been told my wording isn't very, erm… sensitive?"

"You're an environmentalists PR  _nightmare_ ," Chris drawled.

"Yeah. That," Zach agreed comically.

* * *

 

The meeting went astonishingly well considering Zach had been ignored very early in the proceedings once Chris was recognized by Unitgreen's representatives. It had definitely been a good idea to have Chris assist: the Kratt Brothers were very well known and definitely had sufficient clout to assist him simply by association.

Zach bowed out pretty early once the technical bits were over and the rest of it would all be publicity and marketing. He went to go shower because, while he had certainly cleaned up enough to be presentable for a conference call, he hadn't done anything else that morning but talk to Chris and frantically scramble together the presentation.

Chris had been almost disturbingly helpful. As much as it grated against every mental defense he had set up against it: Zach wasn't even worried, emotionally at least, about leaving Chris to handle his business proposal and trusted him not to snoop too much into his files once the meeting was over.

Zach couldn't remember EVER leaving anyone alone with his computer with it unlocked and without supervising them. His tablet and random notes sure, but not his actual computer. There were things in there he knew would haunt the Kratt till his last living moments if he saw them; sales amounts and profits from the inventions he'd made with endangered animals that of course he had to obtain mostly via poaching, the results of tests and such he had to have done in order to make sure the animals he caught were even suitable to be mechanized and sold, and what happened to those that  _weren't_.

But he didn't think Chris would get into it even if he saw the titles on the folders. He'd just end the meeting, close the laptop, and wait for Zach to get back. Somehow the fact that Zach knew he could trust Chris that way was more uncomfortable than knowing someone who WOULD snoop was out there.

Zach muttered obscenities while he scrubbed with his usual slow and meticulous fashion that ensured every quarter-inch of him was soaped thoroughly. This was already a pattern he recognized.

His relationship with Aviva had occurred in a specific order of events. They had met, hated each other instantly, spent some time being rivals, and then had been forced to work together by circumstances beyond their control when the instructors had no choice but to put them together. A basic understanding began to develop, Zach started making concessions just to prevent getting thrashed or impeded in his own projects.

They had become friends without even knowing it. Zach found himself designing things either inspired by his new friend or modifying his existing concepts in ways that would make her happier with the end result. This impressed them and the friendship deepened.

It was at that point that Zach did something terrible and wound up hurting everyone involved.

He groaned in dismay and finished his habitual scrubbing so that he could rub his face and mope. The pattern was repeating itself, wasn't it?

He could already tell he was developing a crush on Chris. The fact that they'd known each other pretty much forever only made it worse, because he knew far more about the man than most people knew about their crushes, and even the flaws (from Zach's perspective) weren't a problem. Zach could work around them and he knew Chris wouldn't find his business practices a problem for much longer… because the market had changed so drastically from the start of his business that Zach just couldn't continue to rely on animal-inclusive mechanizations anymore.

He'd been working on things the Kratts would approve of for months before accepting the contract working with them directly. He'd had no choice! One of the primary rules of any business was that you had to adapt to a constantly changing market or have a monopoly on something so utterly essential people would have to buy from you no matter what. Zach didn't have the advantage of that second blessed group, so he had to change. People just weren't buying his mechanizations anymore. The culture had changed to the point where his signature product was unpopular.

Varmitech Industries had to start doing three main things to stay in business; reduce fuel consumption and emissions (and publicize it), eliminate animal-inclusive mechanization products (and publicize it), and enter what had now become a whispering campaign/popularity contest between companies on who is causing what environmental/PR problem and where and why. And Zach was tired of listening to the news play CLUE and constantly assume it was Varmitech Industries in the wilds with a thresher, even when it wasn't.

He knew hiring Chris was a good business decision because he could literally help with  _all of those things_  and be a great face for it all in the public eye… but Zach really shouldn't have jumped at the chance to keep him nearby so blatantly. Luckily the dunce didn't seem to have noticed his fervor... or at least he misinterpreted the enthusiasm for something else. This was fortunate because it would give Zach time to figure out how to keep Chris on as a consultant (because he legitimately and badly needed one) and simultaneously keep his distance.

The Kratt would inevitably return to the Tortuga and fly off on yet another Creature-venture and Zach would have to travel for his clients and they'd have a lot of distance between them. It would be unlikely they'd see each other a lot because Zach had to stop poaching and using the Kratts Team as unwilling scouts for his next invention and products (though he would continue monitoring them just because they seemed to give him the most marvelous bursts of inspiration and they were just so endlessly entertaining). This alone would put a lot of miles between them and allow Zach to keep Chris as a conference-call-consultant.

And he had better do it soon, or he would wind up in yet another relationship he would inevitably screw up somehow. That is, if Chris would even be interested.

Damn it, now Zach was curious about  **that**  too.

Maybe he could find out, though. If he was sneaky enough.

* * *

 

The meeting had been over for fifteen minutes already and Chris was bored. He'd shut the computer, asked for more of that bitter dandelion tea that really did taste sweeter the more you drank, and wandered to his heart's content. The two present Zachbots had stopped doing anything watchable to the point where Chris started to feel a little weird about their presence. He knew they were just robots, but the longer he spent near them the more he felt like they expected him to talk to them.

If Zach hadn't deliberately programmed their body language then they must have picked it up on their own. And in the second case… that was pretty damned impressive A.I.

"So, uh… You guys took care of Zach's cuts?" Chris nearly startled when they nodded at him in unison. "Will they scar?" Nods. "Oh. Wow, that's…"

Chris ran a hand over his face. He wouldn't stop feeling guilty about Zach coming back for him for a long, long time; and now he'd be seeing evidence of it every time he looked at the man's face. Chris knew that Zach was a coward. It was just something about him you could tell; a normal character trait the same way that his having black hair was a physical trait. He couldn't help it, Chris had decided, it was just the way he WAS.

So didn't that make Zach coming back for Chris actually MORE impressive than if anyone else had done it? It's  _easy_ to be brave when you just don't think before you leap because you aren't facing the consequences of what you're about to do in your mind. How much courage did it take to know exactly what horrors you might face if you went charging into a fight you already knew you couldn't win and then, being completely aware of that,  _doing it anyway_?

"I underestimated him, didn't I?" he mused to himself. Then, also to himself he wondered aloud, "What pills did he take in the Tortuga anyway?"

Chris wasn't actually expecting an answer, but he got one. The Zachbots answered him, at least one did, by producing a printout and handing it to him. Chris blinked and read it, then frowned. "Then why did you keep giving him coffee!?" he demanded.

Zach walked out of the back area and stretched. Clearly having only heard or registered the last word, he held out his hand. "Yeah, a bit more coffee would be great."

Before Chris could argue the Zachbots handed him another cup.

Chris held his hand out and curled his fingers inward demandingly. "You shouldn't be drinking stimulants. It says so right here in your Medical Summary printout they gave me. You  _are_  taking medicine, just not painkillers. Hand it over."

Zach glared at his Zachbots and clutched the cup possessively. "Oh, you're overreacting. It's just a sleep aid."

Chris brandished the paper like a banner. "It says right here there's an interaction between this medicine and caffeine!"

"A minor one," Zach defended. "The medicine is working fine and the effect of four cups of coffee before one p.m. won't cause enough of a problem to worry about. It says 'try to avoid caffeine if possible', not 'caffeine may cause a minor case of death'. At most it'll make me a little nauseous."

Chris shook his head. "Nope – I wouldn't let Martin get away with this and you're not either. You even had coffee last night before you went to bed. Give it up, Zach."

Zach frowned and glared. "When I get a withdrawal headache because you're being too strict I will make absolutely sure that  _everyone_  suffers for it and not just me."

"Fair enough," Chris agreed doggedly.

"Argh! If you insist then we'll trade. Get me eucalyptus tea and I'll give you this cup for it."

Chris raised a skeptical brow. "Why don't you just ask the Zachbots for it?"

Zach scoffed. "How is that fair if I'm giving up something and you're not doing anything to earn it? What you need is over in that little desk area."

Chris hesitated. "You swear?"

Zach made a show of crossing his heart. "I'll trade, promise. Besides, if you think for a little while you'll see things from my point of view," he said calmly.

Chris was dubious about winning so easily, but turned and began filling the electronic tea pot. While it boiled he rummaged until he found the tea bags and set one on the counter. "What are you up to today? You don't really have to work anymore, do you?"

"I can do stuff that doesn't require straining myself if you're worried," Zach teased.

"I'm not worried," Chris insisted.

"I don't believe you," Zach said smugly. "The unreasonable coddling seems to be genetic and I think you Wild Rats are starting to like me."

Chris snorted and poured the water once the kettle was done and opened the cover on the tea bag. "You are  _not_  as charming as you think you are, Varmitech."

Zach snorted and said, as if advertising himself, "I'm charming  _and_  clever and you know it."

Chris huffed once while he pulled on the string to start the tea mixing properly. "Alright, I'll let you have 'clever'. You…" Suddenly Chris rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning in defeat. "Ugh! You only promised to trade me the  **cup**!"

"Ooh, very good, Green Guy!" Zach praised. "You got it faster than I thought you would."

Tea in hand, Chris finally turned back to Zach and glared. "And while I was making tea you had plenty of time to drink the coffee, didn't you?"

Zach smiled, dangling the now empty mug from the handle on his finger playfully. "If it makes you feel any better I will generously retract my trade requirement. You may now have the cup free of charge. And don't give me that look. I didn't lie; you weren't paying attention."

"Cheater."

"Perhaps. At least you found an error in my 'not a threat' list programming, though." Zach walked over and took the tea from Chris to drink it too. "My mother is allowed to see my medical files: you are not. My fault for not catching it earlier."

Chris sighed. "Yeah, it seemed weird when they gave me that printout. Is that the minimum risk setting?"

"Yup."

"How many people are on it?"

"Two. I already told you that."

Chris gave him a shocked look. "You were _serious_?"

Zach raised a brow. "You asked."

Chris could already feel the argument building up in the atmosphere around him, but couldn't seem to stop himself. This felt important to know. "And I had to pretty much beg you to let me try. How long is it going to take before you start to trust Martin or Aviva and everyone else? Don't you  _want_  friends?"

"I have plenty, thanks. I make dozens every week and they actually protect me better than the time I hired bodyguards," Zach said flatly. He gave Chris a worried look but stood his ground. Something in that last round of questions had shaken him.

" _Human_  friends-"

" _NO._ "

"Machines don't even feel," Chris argued fiercely. "They can't give you emotion. They don't even care when they hurt you. I've seen the Zachbots do it! I haven't heard you use the expression 'pinch me' more than once!"

"That's  _exactly why_  I like my Zachbots better than people," Zach whined. "It isn't so much the pain that bothers me; it's the  _intention_  behind it! At least with the Zachbots I can alter their programming to make sure it doesn't happen again!"

"What?" Chris asked. He suddenly got the feeling that Zach was playing a different game than he was, and hadn't given Chris the rules. "That makes no sense!"

Zach lurched forward and grabbed the front of Chris's shirt, pulling forward in an attempt to force him off-balance and use his slight height advantage to intimidate him.

This... did not work.

No matter what popular media and romance novels might believe; superior height does in no way equal superior strength. Slim and snake-like is no match for strong and sturdy no matter the height difference. So what  _actually happened_  was that Zach pulled himself toward Chris and had to lean over slightly to maintain direct eye contact. The entire effect would have looked rather comical to an outside observer, so it was fortunate that there weren't any.

"Yes it does!" Zach hissed darkly. "Machines have never hurt me  _on purpose_ , they do it because they were badly programmed or I wasn't careful enough. You can't blame machines for causing pain because they  _don't sit there and deliberate it_. No machine has never looked at me and consciously thought hurting me might be fun orclearly enjoyed it afterwards. I  ** _wish_**  I could say the same about people!"

Something in Chris's throat started to feel like lead. He had sudden memories of how terrible he'd felt when he learned what bear-baiting was and exactly how fox hunters operated. He tried to swallow it but it wouldn't go down. Suddenly Zach made a lot more  _sense_. Chris had always thought of Zach as a hunter but that only applied to him in relation to animals, didn't it? In relation to other humans where did Zach stand? Without his bodyguards?

Chris didn't actually know the answer to that. It felt like he should. They'd known each other since they were kids, for pity's sake. How could he not know that? Still; it wasn't as if Zach didn't have his clear advantages that he used to the absolute fullest extent.

"And yet you do that all the time," Chris pointed out. "You hurt animals, kids,  _us_ -"

"I never said I wasn't a hypocrite," Zach snapped with brutal, crushing honesty. "Sometimes fighting fire with fire is all you've got. You asked me for an explanation; you didn't say it had to be  _fair_! How's this for fair? Why don't you tell me how playing by the rules helps if other people won't? Doesn't that just leave me open to attack? You guys may be able to afford that kind of lifestyle, but  _Wildcats_  are entirely different things than  _Rats_ ," he spat. Zach let go of Chris's shirt and pushed him violently backward, which worked about as well as the pulling had. Chris stepped back once out of courtesy while Zach was only able to keep himself balanced because he had applied the force himself.

"I don't have the same luxuries you do! You think it's fair when a dingo swallows a mouse? Or a mongoose tears a snake into miscellaneous bits?" Zach laughed suddenly, but it was entirely devoid of humor. "The mongoose doesn't even have a reason! It just does it! No food or protection comes out of it; they just don't like snakes! The same way that nobody seems to like me! You talk about survival strategies all the time and it never occurred to you that  _the way I behave might be mine_!?"

Chris took a sudden breath and held it out of instinct. Zach was hissing these words at him with the intensity of a rodent about to be torn asunder by something much bigger than it was; determined only to put up one hell of a fight before it became dinner. Even after being swallowed he would fight until his last breath and rip the predator's innards to shreds if it could. Chris had just made the biggest mistake a Creature-venturer could ever make; he had cornered something small and expected it not to fight.

They  _always_  fight.

"I don't have fangs or claws or venom or spines; I'm not big or strong and I don't have the advantage of camouflage or safety in numbers," Zach spat bitterly, and then gestured to the army of robots dusting the furniture behind him. "Not unless I make those things myself. I'm going with the only skills I have! So, YES, I sneak and I cheat and I lie and surround myself with bigger things than me – things I can  _control_ \- to do my fighting for me because that's all I can do. It's helped me survive. You want me to stop doing those things and join your little team, Chris?  _Do you!?_ "

Chris didn't know how to reply, he just stared and waited for the other shoe to drop.

" _THEN FIND ME A BETTER OPTION!_ " Zach demanded.

He motioned to his Zachbots and they (notably gently) pushed Chris out into the hallway beyond the suite of rooms.

The door slammed.

If anything the quiet afterward was louder than the shouting had been. Chris stood there stunned until the sunlight coming in from the window behind him made his neck hot, but he hadn't heard Zach storm away. Through the peephole in the door Chris could see the doorway to the kitchen and bedrooms and he knew it was the only way out of that room. Zach couldn't have left.

Curiously he put his ear against the door and listened. He heard nothing, but there was a faint vibration in the door as if something was trembling on the other side.

That, if nothing else, convinced Chris at last that he should leave Zach alone.

For now at least.

* * *

 

"I don't get it. We were doing fine ten minutes before he kicked me out," Chris moped. He'd come back to the Tortuga to prepare for the group's trip to the bird sanctuary and spilled the story to his friends.

Aviva sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "I do. You pushed too hard too fast. Zach hasn't had to look out for anyone but himself in a long, long time. The idea of having to look out for someone else too must be pretty unnerving for him."

Chris frowned and started to argue. "He doesn't have to-"

"He already  _has_ ," Aviva insisted. "Zach had no reason whatsoever to come back and help us save those Kingfishers aside from an attack of conscience and going after you, Chris. And let's face it; the former is a result of the latter. All those barriers he spent years building up have been breached and that opening is letting all sorts of things in that didn't have a part in the initial attack. That's got to feel pretty intimidating."

She stood up and started pacing, visibly just as worried over this as Chris was. "Friendship is easy for most people to an extent. You find someone you mostly get along with and just share space. But it's a skill in itself; just like any other skill there are those who just aren't good at it and have to put forth concentrated effort to manage doing it. I think Zach could handle it when it was just you, Chris, but trying to include all of us in the responsibility was just heaping on additional weight to a burden he was already struggling to carry."

"What? Did I do that?" Chris asked.

"You said you asked when he would start trusting the rest of us too, remember?" she reminded him from his description of the fight. "He probably thought you were demanding he jump from just being friends with  _you_ to including  _everyone_  in the Kratts team."

Chris did something that he didn't do often: he swore. He looked to his older sibling meaningfully. "I did the same damned thing, didn't I? I'm at a higher skill level at this than Zach is. He's just trying to tread water and I pushed him off the high-dive before he was ready."

Martin winced at both the description and memory it invoked. He faced Aviva, since she knew more about Zach than he did. "So what do we do now? I'd be alright just pretending the fight never happened and moving on. What type of arguer is Zach?"

"Yeah, fights between guys are a little more difficult to handle than fights between girls," Koki mused aloud. "With girls you just apologize for the most part, but you've gotta take a guy's personality type into account. Wait, is that an unfair stereotype or not?"

"It's both," Aviva admitted. "Even if a girl would be happier ignoring the fight altogether she's still expected to apologize just because she's a girl. If more girls were allowed to argue more like guys there'd probably be less stupid drama."

"Me and you are doing that now," Koki insisted, pointing between her and Aviva. "It no longer matters  _who_  had the blowtorch last as long as we eventually find the stupid thing. No drama, no apologies."

Aviva nodded and smiled. "Agreed."

"So what do  **I** do?" Chris insisted.

Aviva thought. "You know, I think he'd accept an apology but isn't likely to give one. Nothing is ever his fault if he can reason it away."

"THAT'S true…" Koki agreed.

"That works out for Chris," Martin grinned. "He's an apologist when it comes to fighting."

"That's not a word," Koki accused wryly. "It's apologizer."

"Apologist is a word," Martin whined. "Isn't it?" he asked Aviva. She nodded indulgently. "Ha. Yes it is."

Chris growled and stood up. "You're not really helping. Scrabble  _later_ , right now I need to-" Chris sighed and paused when his Creature Pod notified him of a message. He balked a little when he read it, then replied.

"Sorry, bro," Martin began while his sibling typed. "We'll think of something."

Chris smiled and read another message as it came through. "Nevermind."

"…are you texting Zach?" Koki asked.

"Yeah. We're good." Chris said simply. "Just let me know when you're ready to go to the Sanctuary."

Martin, Aviva, and Koki watched with curious expressions as Chris exited to continue his typing outside.

"Huh. That was easy." Koki said.

Martin shrugged. "Eh, as long as it worked out."


	10. Survival Value

Survival Value

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." ~Arthur C. Clarke

* * *

 

"Apologist is a word," Martin whined. "Isn't it?" he asked Aviva. She nodded indulgently. "Ha. Yes it is."

Chris growled and stood up. "You're not really helping. Scrabble _later_ , right now I need to-" Chris sighed and paused when his Creature Pod notified him of a message.

**[Did you come up with anything yet? You've been gone for two hours!]**

Chris was at a loss for a moment. He didn't remember being asked for any more contributions to the Unitgreen project, and didn't people usually  _stop_ talking when they were in the middle of a fight? Then he remembered Zach's last line and balked. Did Zach actually intend for Chris to help him come up with a better survival strategy than the one he was using now? Were they not fighting and Zach was just perpetually cranky?

 **[I'll do my best, but I need to think about it and I still need to help with the Kingfishers before I come over.]**  Chris answered.

"Sorry, bro," Martin began while his sibling typed. "We'll think of something."

Chris heard that only vaguely, because Zach answered right away. Somehow the man managed to communicate irritation even via text message.

**[It had better be good, then, if you're making me wait until tomorrow. And you text too slow. Call me.]**

Chris smiled. "Never mind."

"…are you texting Zach?" Koki asked.

"Yeah. We're good." Chris said simply. "Just let me know when you're ready to go to the Sanctuary."

Martin, Aviva, and Koki watched with curious expressions as Chris exited to continue his conversation outside. Whatever they said to each other after that was lost to him since he was listening to Zach's phone ring and waiting for him to pick up. It didn't take long.

Zach's tinny tenor whined at him just an instant after the second ring. "I suppose I should be grateful you at least have the ability to text in complete statements. I swear if you send me one message in shorthand or chat-speak or whatever it's called I am blocking you  _forever_."

Chris laughed and leaned back against the Tortuga as he spoke. "Wow, we agree on something already."

"So what do you think would be a good survival strategy that doesn't involve the one talent of mine you told me not to develop?" Zach demanded.

Chris blinked. "What was that again?"

"Weapons," he replied blankly.

"Oh!" Chris winced. After all the things Zach had made and if he really put his mind to it..."Yeah.  **Don't** do that," he stated.

"Well?" Zach demanded.

Chris massaged his right temple while his dominant hand continued to hold the phone. "You're already pretty good at choosing threatening colors and patterns after what you did to the Zachbots."

Zach scoffed. Something in the background sounded like welding or cutting metal, loud and sharp. "That was easy.  _Everyone_ is afraid of stinging things unless they're stupid. How would that help me? I am not going to dress like a bumblebee test your stupid idea."

Chris snorted. "Okay, but that's not what I meant. Hate to admit it but most animal survival strategies don't work in the human world without a lot of complicated factors involved… and since we're going to start getting you into more eco-friendly business anyway we can get a jump on your new public image!"

"I have face-men for the public stuff," Zach snapped.

Chris smiled. "So maybe just  **a**  public image. It'll be a huge gesture if you start actually going out and appearing yourself without leaving most of the work to your representatives. If people are going to make connections between Varmitech Industries, the new direction of the product lines, and a person – well… someone they aren't actually familiar with yet would be the perfect symbol. I think it's time for Zach Varmitech to appear in public."

 _"I hate this already."_  Zach fretted while he listened to Chris explain his thoughts and opinions, agreed that they made sense, and continued to hate it. "I'm  _not_  the guy that inspires confidence in a product! I'm the guy that memorizes obscure laws so that I don't have to pay my taxes in full every February!"

Chris hummed in thought. "And you sort of  _look_  like that guy, too. No offense…"

"Some taken," Zach drawled. "I am not going to start strutting around wearing brightly colored suits and kissing babies and stupid stuff like that. No way. I HIRE people for that!" Zach insisted desperately. "Hell, I'm hiring  **you**  for that!"

Chris clicked his tongue several times chidingly. "I'm not a face-man, I'm a consultant, remember? You're like a spoiled King. What's the point of hiring advisers if you don't, occasionally,  _listen to their advice_? If you were really looking for yet another Yes-Man in your roster then you missed the mark by miles with me."

Zach muttered some things that Chris didn't understand exactly. It might not have been English, but either way it was muffled considerably by the noises in the background that suggested the Zachbots were constructing something pretty ardently. Eventually Zach converted back to a tone and language Chris was familiar with.

"I don't wanna'!" he whined urgently.

"I didn't think so," Chris grinned. "That's exactly why you should do it, though! Nobody will expect it! They probably think you're a huge whiny wimp that doesn't like crowds and cameras. Or just a socially awkward geek that never grew out of it."

Silence from the other side (from Zach at least) indicated the pale man struggled with his reply to this. Chris grinned and hummed little tunes in his head while he waited for the inevitable. He knew he was right. Also that Zach would sleep in a sealed chamber with an entirely uncontrolled rhinoceros before he would admit it.

"What would I have to do exactly?"

Chris did a little victory dance that would not have happened if anyone had been around to see it. "I'll come by after I help get the Kingfishers situated and we can talk about it, ok?"

"Fine," Zach snapped, then hung up.

"...doesn't he ever say 'goodbye'?" Chris muttered in irritation.

* * *

 

"I guess suggesting safety in numbers as an alternative to this is out of the question?" Zach prompted nervously as Chris rifled through what was in the jet's small but extremely well-organized wardrobe.

"You're smart, so you already know the answer to that one," Chris laughed, his voice muffled by the clothes.

Chris had arrived shortly after finishing up at the bird sanctuary and had declined dinner since the Kratts had been treated to an early supper while there, so Zach sat at his desk munching on Belgian waffles of the most sinful and decadent kind and wondering what, exactly, Chris intended to find in there that Zach didn't already wear.

Zach sighed. "Because unless you guys plan to attend my corporate events as either bodyguards or diversions that isn't a long-term solution," he drawled. "Next?"

"Okay, well there's a bunch of survival strategies we could try." Chris emerged for a moment holding yet another black/grey item and tossed it to the bed, where Zachbots hastily rushed to pick up and properly fold it. They had been trying to keep up with Chris's destructive method of searching their master's wardrobe for a while and had failed completely to contain the mess. "You're already pretty good at avoiding detection since you have those invisibility things; but again the point here is to be seen." Chris started walking around the room in circles and completely ignored Zach abandon his waffles to help the Zachbots fold before anything got too creased. "Something like the aposematic pattern you put on your Zachbots to incite a fear reaction; but in this case we want you to just look distinctive so you're easily recognized."

Chris paused to cross his arms and shake his head disapprovingly at the very monochromatic pile of dark clothes that Zach was now putting back on the shelves. "White would certainly be a drastic change."

"If you try to turn me into Colonel Sanders I will put a hit out on you," Zach hissed menacingly, clutching a black turtleneck that had been folded into a perfect square to his chest possessively. "You couldn't pay me to wear yellow either."

Chris laughed. "Come on, Zach. It's worth a try."

He reached out to touch Zach's uninjured shoulder, missed when Zach bent down to get a wayward pair of pants, and wound up with his hand temporarily stuck in a mat of tacky black hair. Both of them yelped and tried to free themselves, succeeding only when Chris's shock wore off and his climber's instincts abated enough to allow him to unclench his fingers. Chris grimaced at the sticky residue left on his fingers while Zach rushed to a mirror (read: the Zachbots rushed a mirror to him) and he fervently began to slick his hair back into place.

"Watch what you're doing!" the pale man snapped viciously. "It isn't easy to get my hair to look like this, you know!"

"Why do you even keep it like that?" Chris complained while he wiped his hand on his shorts, only to get his hand nearly stuck to them. "It just makes your head look like even more of a big triangle than it already does."

"Because," Zach bit nastily while he ran his finger through said strands in quick and practiced movements, "once I hit thirteen it decided to be evil and intentionally defy the laws of gravity. Puberty was not kind to me," he mused. "At least I'd got rid of the braces by then, though."

"Really?" Chris snorted. "I thought you'd like having naturally evil hair."

"Not when I'm trying to look presentable and wheedle my way into a loan to start a business," he answered flatly. "Being evil and looking evil are two completely different things. The former helps enormously with business and the latter generally doesn't."

Chris pondered this while he washed his hands in the bathroom sink. Given the size of the jet it just meant he had to aim his voice around a doorway – there wasn't enough of an increase in distance to justify raising his voice. "How bad is it that you basically have to glue it?"

"You'd be amazed," the other drawled. He was finally finished fixing it and was now waiting his turn to use the sink.

"I want to see it," Chris concluded in precisely the same manner as a child that had been told not to put pennies in the light socket immediately doing so.

"No you don't," Zach stated flatly.

"Seriously. I do."

"No."

It was Chris's turn to whine now. " _Why not!?_ "

"Because it looks  _weird_ ," Zach complained. "And I hate it."

"Yeah," Chris smiled. "That's why I want to see it. It could be part of your new look."

Zach scoffed and tried to move around Chris to get to the sink, but Chris just blocked his way. Twice. Then he snatched Zach's wrists in a grip the waifish man wouldn't be able to escape if his life depended on it to prevent him from reaching the water. "Please?"

"I was serious about that hit," Zach squeaked while wrenching his hands back futilely. "I  _know people_." He glanced back at his Zachbots and shouted, "Hey!" by means of asking why they weren't helping. It was only when they merely turned in his direction to await further orders that he remembered Chris was still designated as trusted, and therefore only annoying until actual harm was done. Zach sighed and wilted. "I don't  _need_  a new image and any public image can be easily bought with a little scandal and creative advertising. Besides, technically you'd just be reviving an old look."

"Zach, how can you expect anything in your life to change if you aren't willing to change?" Chris asked in his 'teacher' voice. "Physically looking different won't just change how other people see you; it'll change how you see yourself too. In your own mind, when you walk by a mirror and note the apparent differences every day, you'll start forming the mental association that you're a different person now. And that'll make it easier to actually  **be**  different."

"Let go," Zach whined, then lurched backward to rub his freed wrists, less because they actually hurt and more just to make Chris concerned about it. "You're not making any sense anyway. How is looking like I just rolled out of bed going to help me do less evil things?"

"Because," Chris said gently, "If you look different - no matter what that difference is exactly - people will subconsciously think of you as a new person even if logic disagrees."

"That's stupid and should  **not** make the amount of sense that it does," Zach whined grudgingly.

"So is keeping up outwardly good appearances so that you can do evil things," Chris countered. "Now go wash the gel out, ok?"

Zach moved aside to let Chris out of the bathroom and did so, muttering profanely to himself the entire time.

* * *

 

Martin hummed contentedly while he sorted through his creature power discs. "Since Chris seems to have managed to get on Zach's good side, how long do you think it'll be until we get to have him over more often? He could come in handy during creature rescues."

Aviva, Martin, and Koki had been having this conversation since Chris had left and it was just getting more entertaining as they went along. Jimmy continued munching cookies and looking between them like he was watching a three-way tennis match, clearly enjoying himself. While Aviva and Koki talked they paced around like agitated cats assessing everything Zach had done while there, getting Aviva reacquainted with the status of all of their missions and what needed to be done, and periodically stopping to unfold yet-another-origami-blueprint. There was a pile of ruffled papers in the corner that Martin had weighted down with the huge black and red backup books in an attempt to make the creased paper lie flat again.

"What would Zach even  _do_  here?" Aviva demanded hotly, trying to figure out how the hell Zach had managed to turn four pages of Buzz-Bike instructions into interlocking triangular prisms without ripping anything. Out of curiosity she had scanned it for fingerprints and found this particular bit of geometric insanity covered in them, so it hadn't been done by a Zachbot either. Damn him. "We've got all our bases covered."

"No we don't," Jimmy said suddenly. It was the first time he'd spoken because he didn't want to interrupt the petty bickering; it was better than playing video games sometimes.

"What do you mean, Jimmy?" Koki asked. "We've got the Bros for field work, research and ideas. Aviva and I handle inventing and maintenance and planning. You're our pilot, navigator and teleporter operator and, let's face it, you're pretty much our den mother and keep us all fed."

"And caffeinated," Jimmy added proudly.

"Which we do appreciate a lot," Aviva said gratefully.

"You are welcome," he saluted.

Koki smiled and shook her head at that. "So what's Varmitech supposed to contribute to the team?" She growled and held up what looked like a paper ball made of joined triangles. "Okay; I don't even know what this  _is_..."

"It's a Icosidodecahedron," Aviva grumbled, reluctantly impressed. "Well… he'd expand our group's language roster. Right now we've just got English, Spanish, the Latin that Chris can translate, and whatever I can manage to translate with software. Zach can speak German. He learned it for business purposes, though I think that particular client has moved on. I think he's got a weird obsession with languages, really... it sort of stems naturally from an obsession with coding. It's basically all translating in a way."

"I did not know that," Koki professed reluctantly in the manner of one who had to admit their history tutor might actually know some damned history. She winced when a tiny ripping noise came from the paper she was trying to unravel and slowly put it down under Aviva's burning Look. "I'll just, uh, try a different one. So what good would Varmitech be, Jimmy?"

"Please; backup disc-maker, he could help with repairing stuff, he plays video games better than any of you, the Zachbots really help with the chore level-"

"What could he do that  _none of us could_ , Jimmy?" Koki demanded testily.

"Apparently he can pull Chris out of a downward spiral," Martin mused morosely. "Even I can't do that sometimes. Especially when I'm the one he's mad at."

Aviva sat back and gave up on her paper puzzle for the moment. "How  _did_ he do that, anyway?"

Martin laughed. "Chris just likes him. People get along for strange reasons. Traits that seem obnoxious to some people are endearing to others. Like how Jimmy's scared to death of Aviva when she yells in Spanish and I just think it's hilarious."

Jimmy pouted, "When she yells at you or me!?"

"Anyone in general, really," Martin admitted.

"Usted es muy afortunado que eres lindo," Aviva said with a resigned sigh.

Martin smiled. "Thanks, 'Iva."

Aviva smiled and winked at him. "No tienes idea lo que estoy diciendo."** Martin walked over and hugged her affectionately. She laughed and hugged him in return. 

"Right back at ya'," the older Kratt said contentedly.

Koki, who had been using the translator on her Creature Pod, covered her face with both hands and giggled helplessly.

* * *

 

 _"That is **awesome**!"_  Chris laughed uproariously the instant Zach, hair unconstrained by the shackles of overly expensive hair products, came within his line of sight.

"I hate you," the tech mogul hissed venomously. Everything about him aside from his actual hair was precisely the same, but it was still enough to make him look insane on cosmic levels and he knew it.

Chris stood up and walked over. "You have the hair of an Abyssinian Guinea Pig!"

Zach simply crossed his arms and scoffed. "Since I'm not sure what that is I will choose to be offended by that statement."

"You shouldn't be! Somehow this actually suits you; It's definitely mad scientist hair! And the scars totally sell the look." Chris started to circle him to get the full panoramic view while Zach did that angry-cringe-away-from-unwanted-attention thing in a way that almost made it look like a slow and deliberate panic dance. "I mean you've always had that eerie pale-skinned brunette thing going on, but now it's got a brilliant-but-unhinged appeal. So... pretty accurate."

"Yeah, that's why I gel it down, "Zach complained loudly. "When I don't I look insane. Are you done gawking at me now?" Anxious to get back to the bathroom and fix the natural spikes and whorls into something less turbulent, Zach turned and started to move only to have his arm grabbed. He groaned and looked back.

"Do you have a lab coat?" Chris asked with a wide grin.

"You're going to make me wear it, aren't you?" he whined.

"Yes," the younger Kratt confirmed. He placed his hands on Zach's back and pushed him purposefully toward the area where Zach kept his tools in the control room, assuming that's where the coat would be. "I've got to see how this looks with a lab coat, and maybe one or two of your gadgets."

Zach growled and dug his heels into the floor. It didn't stop him from moving forward but resisting, even futilely, made him feel better. When he had issued the challenge to Chris he thought he'd come up with something like hidden weapons to keep on himself - Zach had certainly devised all sorts of things to make him a walking booby-trap for muggers if he couldn't have any Zachbots at the time. Not once had he considered a childish makeover session would be in the program. "Do you play manic dress-up with all your friends or am I just special?" Zach demanded caustically.

"Usually the Creature Power Suits would cover that so, yes I do. I don't think nature would look very good on you though, so we'll have to come up with something else. Something..." Chris paused while he tried to come up with an appropriate association, then settled on his memory of the meteor shower. "Something  _spacey_."

"Spacey?" Zach inquired flatly. Once they reached the right area Chris stopped pushing Zach with a suddenness that made the taller man fall forward with a startled yelp into the arms of a luckily placed Zachbot. Once back on his feet he glared and Chris held his hands up in apology.

"Yeah! More cosmonaut and less zoologist," Chris elaborated. "I mean, Aviva is great in the lab, but she's always prepared for the possibility of field work - at any moment she could wind up outside in a swamp or jungle or desert and dresses pretty casually for that reason. Since you don't have to go out and do field work as often, and even when you do you have the Zachbots and there's no real reason to change your wardrobe, you don't need to worry about the functionality of your clothes unless it's a special situation. For the most part you should dress for lab work; so why not just wear the coat all the time unless you need to put on a suit for an important meeting or something?"

"Oh..." Zach considered this. It sort of sounded like a good idea. If you didn't count how much he did actually go outside collecting animals, which he wasn't going to be doing much at all anymore, the only real change that would cause was getting used to wearing his lab attire when he didn't strictly need to. He sighed and walked to his supply closet and pulled out a tightly sealed bag with several clean coats sealed within to keep the smell of motor oil off them. He put one on and held his arms out to either side, facing Chris. "There," he drawled. "Happy?"

Chris crossed his arms and considered it, then walked over and undid the buttons so the coat was hanging open. "Reading glasses?" he suggested.

"If I put those on I'll only be able to focus up to twenty inches in front of my face," Zach said by way of refusal.

"Yeah, and it'll probably take away from the somewhat deranged look I'm aiming for..." Chris mused.

Offended, Zach snapped and pointed at Chris angrily. "Hey! You-" and found himself aiming his finger off to the side as Chris seemed to get an idea and lunged for a nearby counter.

"Where is it?" he asked urgently.

"-have the attention span of a ferret!" Zach improvised testily. "And stop  _touching_  everything! Where is  ** _what_**!?"

"That headgear with the green screen shaped like a triangle," Chris explained. "What's that thing called?"

"I wasn't aware you'd ever even set eyes on my field visor," Zach said suspiciously. "I lost it when-"

"When you stole the Hippopotamus disc," Chris said. "I found it later when I went back for more research right around where you got stuck in that tree. It looked like it'd been trampled, though."

"Oh. Well, I have a new one; but not here."

"So call for it - tell your Zachbots to send it here with the Teleporter you designed," Chris suggested.

Zach cursed Chris's cleverness and memory while he did so since he was  _so done_  with playing dress-up, and the requested item landed safely on the bed in the next room. Chris ran to retrieve it after the familiar crackle of energy alerted him to the transport. Once he returned he nearly put it on Zach's head himself, but the pale man recoiled and snatched it to put it on without assistance.

"Okay, what else?" Zach sighed.

Chris smiled as he looked Zach up and down and the thin man hoped he wasn't flushing at the blatant approval in that look. The new visor was basically the same thing as the old; a metal head band with a screen and a remote connection to his network that also scanned when needed. This model, however, was simply a headband that projected a holographic screen that was nearly transparent except to the wearer. The screen was still triangular and green but the new projection didn't hide his face and it allowed for much greater versatility in what he could view and how the visor could actually function. Zach had no idea what he was even thinking making the cumbersome thing he'd taken out in Africa; it had obscured his vision in the same way one can't really see through a laptop screen.

"Is that it?"

Chris nodded. "It's definitely a good look for you."

Zach quelled his elation at that praise on the grounds that nobody was ever right unless he agreed with them. He snapped his fingers and the Zachbots brought over his full-length mirror. After taking a few moments to peruse his reflection he scowled, then palmed his face with a reluctantly accepting sigh. "Congratulations, Chris. You've made me look like an evil pharmacist."

While Chris laughed Zach whined inwardly over how unfair it was that the idiot had a point. This was actually a pretty good look for him... maybe he'd just had to grow into it. The hair alone had certainly earned him a lot of scorn and torment when he was a kid. He didn't think even Aviva had ever seen it because he knew better by the time he met her to let a girl see him in too natural a state.

"Come on, let's go see everyone before it gets dark. Jimmy's taking off in the morning and we need to decide how to keep in contact and when if I'm still working for you," Chris said.

Zach made a disgusted face and rolled his eyes. "You just want to see what the rest of your little buddy group thinks of this."

"Yup. And I'm already going to have to bribe you to go like that, huh?" Chris prompted knowingly.

"No."

Chris blinked. "Really?"

"I haven't given you the new suit yet. I'll go with you like this if you wear the Creature Power suit I made to see what Aviva thinks of that, too," Zach offered. "Deal?"

"She's not going to like that," Chris mused.

"Well I don't like this, but I'm still going because you seem to know what you're doing. There's no point in hiring a Consultant if I don't listen; you said it." Zach turned and, to his surprise, the way he usually turned on his heel made the open coat flay out behind him momentarily in a pseudo-villainous cape-like way.

Yup - evil pharmacist chic, that was him. Damn it. He looked to Chris to see if he had any comments on that, but had to turn away again because Chris was looking at him with smug approval; and Zach couldn't tell if it was Donita's type of 'I'm a brilliant designer and you should love me for it' approval or just appreciating how Zach looked, period.

"But if you turn out to be wrong you're fired," Zach snapped and stormed out.

Chris just shook his head and followed.

* * *

 

Koki laughed so hard she had to put her hand out to balance on her station. This failed to keep her up after she ran out of breath, however, and she wound up kneeling on the floor anyway.

"Are you done?" Zach asked blithely after she had to pause to take some air in.

She looked up at him to apologize, snorted and started laughing again. "What did you do to your hair?"

"Absolutely  _nothing_ ," Zach bit nastily. He was sort of glad the first thing she mentioned hadn't been his face - the Zachbots had recommended he let the scratches air out so he'd not been wearing the bandages since that afternoon. The skin around the marks was red and angry, and the scratches themselves were a very stark and obvious sickly wine-red on white. Zach thought it looked terrible, especially since they were currently covered in an ointment that hadn't absorbed yet and gave the entire area an odd sheen.

Chris walked in soon after, having been occupied putting his Buzz-Bike away. "Koki, that's mean," he complained.

"I'm sorry," she said while wiping the tears out of her eyes. "It just surprised me. I didn't even know human hair could  _do_  that! Just-" She stopped and stood abruptly after seeing Chris.

"Clearly it can," Zach drawled. "Where's Aviva? If I have Chris sign a contract without her reading it first I'll never hear the end of it."

"What in the name of-" she started on Chris's suit, then shook her head. "What contract?!"

Chris smiled and shrugged. "Zach needs some help. He asked me."

"You agreed to work for Varmitech," she stated weakly.

"Yes," Chris verified.

Koki palmed her face and took a few deep breaths. "Okay, I'll get her on one condition; you have to tell Jimmy to turn on the security cameras first because I want to see this explosion but don't want to actually be here when it happens."

* * *

* * *

 

*Usted es muy afortunado que eres lindo. = You are very lucky you're cute.

**No tienes idea lo que estoy diciendo. = You have no idea what I'm saying.


	11. Pieces of Their Lives

**Pieces of Their Lives**

_"When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due." ~ Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear_

* * *

 

"How big of an explosion are we expecting here?" Zach asked while he waited for Koki to retrieve Aviva from the lower levels.

Chris shrugged and held his hands up to form a space about the size of a basketball.

Zach motioned behind him, where Jimmy was setting up a tray of cookies and a mug of something steaming. "That doesn't bother you? It looks like he's setting up to watch a movie!"

"Don't mind me," Jimmy grinned. "I'm just background scenery."

Chris smiled and shook his head. "He's more of a referee than a spectator."

Zach balked. "That implies he's  _scoring this_  somewhere!"

"He is," Chris confirmed, clearly amused. "I'll be right back, I need to get something."

"You are  _not_  leaving me alone here to deal with this!" Zach hissed menacingly.

Chris held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not, promise. I'll be right back. I just need to get something from my compartment down below. Besides, Jimmy won't let any fighting break out without me here because it'd interfere with his point system."

"Fine," Zach drawled, then glared back at Jimmy after Chris had left. "Do something more useful."

"Watching is useful," Jimmy argued.

"In the event you need to testify in court?" the inventor challenged.

Jimmy smiled and held out the mug, which he had just topped generously with whipped cream. "If you stop drawing attention to me and let me have my fun I'll make you some cocoa."

Zach continued glaring. "No. Stop bribing me with sweets, too - I just got the stupid exercise regimen my doctor insisted on months ago to feel normal and you're messing it up."

Jimmy winced and put his cup back down. "Sorry. That's pretty cool, though. What sort of exercise are you doing?"

Zach shrugged. "Mostly just walking for half an hour every day if I can, and avoiding sitting down if at all possible. I even got some of those tall desks for all my offices and workstations," he said blandly. "It took a while to get used to. I didn't realize how much actual work just  _standing_  can be if you do it long enough. The only alternative was  _jogging_ ," he bit venomously. "I hate that treadmill with a passion I usually only reserve for enemies."

Jimmy snorted. "No offense, but you would look  _hilarious_  jogging, or lifting weights, or anything like that. Why does it matter so much if you get a little chubby?"

"Because I only seem to gain it in one particular place and stay skinny everywhere else and I don't want to wind up like my dad; giving off the impression I've shoved a basketball up my shirt," he replied tartly.

Jimmy laughed. "THAT sucks."

"How do  _you_  do it?" Zach asked.

Jimmy blinked, half a cookie already in his mouth. "Hm?"

"You're always eating and drinking sugar-laden stuff and don't seem to suffer for it. How?"

Jimmy thought as he chewed and swallowed. "I think I'm just lucky, genetically."

Zach snorted, "Good for  _you_."

Jimmy stretched. "Sure you don't want anything? It's late, but I could make you decaf or something."

Zach shook his head just as Chris came back up. "What were you getting, anyway?"

"You'll see later," Chris grinned. "Koki's not back yet?"

Jimmy snickered. "Aviva's probably making her try to unfold another blueprint. Seriously, Zach, did you tape any of them?"

"No," the pale man laughed evilly.

Aviva knocked on the doorway from the corridor with a wry expression on her face. "No, he didn't tape them. I checked."

"Hi, Aviva," Chris said cheerfully.

Surprised, she smiled back at him. Then she noticed the suit Chris was wearing and rushed forward. " _What did you do to my creature power suit!?_ " she demanded of Zach.

Chris lifted a finger and tried to defend Zach with a little 'um', but the inventors went at each other like rabid honey badgers instantly. Jimmy started ticking off points on his fingers while he chewed.

"I didn't do  _anything_  to it - that's a new one **I**  made!" he snapped. "And it  _doesn't_  require Chris to find and touch the animal he wants to turn into beforehand; the genomes are  _stored_!"

"The Creature Power Suits need a genetic sample from an animal  **directly**  each time because I designed them to compensate for the variables between the person actually using the suit and the genetic sample!" Aviva shouted angrily, advancing on Zach. "If you have  _set_  genetic codes instead of an adaptable one that has to realign itself depending on which animal was the sample then it makes it  _really dangerous_  for the suit to have multiple users! A stored code can't compensate well enough to guarantee the safety of the wearer! It'd be your STUPID animal to human translator mess all over again! Instead of allowing variations to properly blend during the merger the stored codes would try to  _overwrite anything unfamiliar instead_!"

Zach stomped the remaining three steps to her and they glared nose-to-nose. "There are a grand total of  _five people_  in this turtle that could possibly use the suits, and that could  _easily_  be accounted for by your program-" he began hotly.

"YES, but what if one of you  _idiot **villains**_  decides to steal one and put it on!?" she demanded, grabbing his shirt and yanking until he had to actively lean backward to prevent their noses from squishing together.

Zach hesitated. " ** _I_**  sure as hell wouldn't-" he began, but stopped when she shook him a few times.

"Or even one of the  **Kratts Kids**? Kids do inadvisable things when they're playing or excited and don't think through the consequences of their actions thoroughly enough to keep from hurting themselves with sticks and rocks, let alone advanced technology! I  **can't**  account for  _every human genome on the planet_! I could account for my friends and still have the suits function with stored codes, but I will NOT be even  _indirectly_  responsible for dissolving another human being into their base components because I didn't anticipate humanity's rampant reckless streak!"

Zach reared back, failed to escape her grasp, stomped on her foot until she yelped and let go, then fell backward onto the floor because he hadn't actually expected that last bit to work with her thick boots. He growled and rubbed his sore backside as he stood up again. "Then why don't you just have an identification system that  _prevents the suits from activating_  if it  _doesn't recognize the user!_?" he demanded shrilly enough to make most of the team cringe and cover their ears. "Then any of us  _IDIOT VILLAINS_  or your precious Kratts Kids wouldn't even be able to turn it  **ON**! You already have it reflect the user's favorite color, so clearly you have some kind of recognition system in place!"

Aviva blinked and gasped. "You're right! I do have a recognition system already in place," she said happily. "And the way you have it programmed with stored codes would allow for a more complete transformation if we did it carefully enough, and we could use that for when things get really serious because it would make the powers work better too!"

Her eureka moment seemed contagious. Neither inventor was angry anymore and, quite suddenly, they were having a brainstorming session like they hadn't been fighting at all just seconds ago.

"…and then you'd be able to give someone a passcode if they just needed to borrow it for a while – same suit, different operating method." Zach mused gleefully. "We could have the suits switch between modes depending on the situation and who was using it! But you should still provide a sample case or something with genetic materials available without them having to track down an actual critter for the variable mode."

Aviva nodded excitedly. "Even though the Bros like the chasing animals part they can still do that and just not use the provided samples. I mean, we already have to do that with the Tasmanian Tiger. It's not like they can just find one."

"Why not?"

"They're extinct."

"Oh." Zach made a complicated little motion near his headband that turned on the visor screen and started typing away in midair on a shimmering, artificial keyboard. "Could we keep that much information in one suit, though? We need schematics for this."

"What about just keeping the disc method for the variable mode, because most of what's in the discs anyway is the program that helps adjust for variables."

"That could work!" Zach agreed. "I didn't know THAT was what took up so much information. Your template for the programming kept me out of most of the really complicated bits, but I did wonder..."

Aviva squealed happily and Zach did a strangely neutral cackle at exactly the same time while Chris looked on in mild shock.

They abruptly stopped and shared a suspicious look.

"…are you still fighting?" Chris asked cautiously.

"No; this is too good to miss," Aviva smiled. "I don't care if it was a joint idea. Come on Zach! Let's go make the best Creature Power Suits possible!"

Zach winced and took a step backward. "Together?" he whined.

"Maybe it won't be so bad. I'll even make the coffee. Okay?" she prompted, holding out her hand.

Zach made a show of groaning and rolling his eyes before holding out his hand to shake hers. "Fine," he grumbled. As they headed toward the lower laboratory his voice echoed up the corridor: "But  **I'm**  handling the filing parameters and backups!"

"Deal! Come on."

Jimmy opened a little notebook he'd had in his pocket and started jotting down things after the two had fled down to the lower levels. Chris stayed in his spot and stared after them for a few minutes until the rest of the team came back from the errands they had been on.

"What just happened?" Martin asked, sensing the weird atmosphere and noting that Jimmy was writing in THAT notebook again. Chris shrugged and looked honestly and thoroughly confused.

Koki walked in just after holding grocery bags that Martin had brought back and blinked at the looks of confusion/astonishment, and Jimmy's scribbling glee. "Oh, NO! What did I miss!?"

Jimmy laughed. "Zach and Aviva! They just switched from freak-out to geek-out in the middle of a fight! It was awesome!"

Koki dropped the bags with a despairing cry and ran to her station. " **Please**  tell me you had the cameras on!"

"Uhm…" Jimmy hesitated, unsure.

Koki checked and pumped a fist in the air triumphantly when she found fate in her favor.  _"YES!"_

"Okay," Chris drawled, finally finished with his mental reboot. "You two have  _way_  too much free time."

* * *

Donita Donata paced in her holding cell and thought.

This might not have been possible if she had been a bit more disgusted by her clothing since wearing something she knew was unfashionable always made her itch too much to think, but luckily there were a lot of cop shows that displayed what was hot and not in prison garb and orange quite luckily flattered her skin tone divinely. Otherwise she would have preferred to take the damned thing off and walk around wrapped in the bed sheet. Cot sheet? Whatever. She could fold a decent chitin out of any rectangular fabric.

Her primary subject of thought was the man that had put her there against all probability: Zachary Varmitech.

Donita had always thought Zach was an interesting if odd little man. He was fun to play with when he wasn't being evasive about it, gave her and Gaston good business and actually paid on time (miracle of miracles…) and was oddly good at his little skill niche. Not inventing precisely, but she'd be damned if he didn't turn a good profit. It was something else entirely.

Zach Varmitech's skill was, as far as she could really tell, playing on the inherent meanness and insecurity of others. How else could someone that sold mechanized living things that wore out faster than conventional machinery going to find customers?

She did it herself after all; if you asked most any sensible, average human being what they thought about animal cruelty issues they would be steadfastly on the side of the animals if their suffering wasn't strictly necessary. Sure there would always be the heartfelt meat-eaters and leather-wearers- and fur-bearers that didn't give a damn but if you asked one of those people to personally go out and slaughter the source of their luxury then for the most part you would find they just weren't capable. Nobody likes to think about where their resources actually  _come from_ ; they just like to enjoy the result.

There were varying degrees of this, certainly, but the fact remained that a singular person is usually against unnecessary suffering.

BUT - tell a wealthy trophy wife that had suspicions her husband had a mistress about a fashion trend that would have him clamoring after her for attention - then she'd buy hundreds of live and immobilized critters to put in her hair in a heartbeat. Even if she loved her poodle like a surrogate child since becoming an empty-nester and knew, logically, she was doing something wrong, she would do it. Likewise a husband that thought his unreasonable work schedule was leaving his wife a little too much free time while he was away on business would snatch up anything that would give her a reason to preen and praise him, make her friends talk about how lucky she was to have him, and he would squander thousands in a single sitting.

Switching the genders didn't matter on that one. It worked, and it was profitable as hell.

The fear of one's own pain and loss would almost ALWAYS outweigh that of others. Donita had preyed on that sort of person so many times she was amazed to have never personally witnessed the friction of pen on checkbook causing it to spontaneously ignite. It was so scandalously easy… for FASHION.

Fashion was a luxury product that was in no way required to be usefully functional in any concrete way for her customers. If they liked it personally and it caused a stir in their social circle then it had done its job in full. There were no real criteria, legally, that Donita needed to fulfill in order for her product to earn repeat customers. ANY reaction was good, after all, and another one would be good too no matter what it was as long as you got the attention.

How had Zach done it for people who bought things for normal, everyday tasks!? He seemed astonishingly adept at it! Even when catering to businesses where using the actual animal mechanizations would  _decrease production speed and efficiency_  Zach still managed to miraculously gain leeway. Demolition and construction, competitive sports, entertainment, transportation, and lot of otherwise very practical businesses where highly efficient and long-lasting tools were demanded still bought Varmitech Industries products!

And after a meeting with Zach in a conference call they were often desperate for them, too. It really made no sense unless he was playing on the fears of those he spoke to like he was plucking harp-strings. He implanted ideas in their heads while he spoke; they'd be cutting-edge, gain free publicity (because after all even bad publicity was effective advertising), have one-up on their competitors if only for the uniqueness of their tools, etc.…

In terms of selling things Zachary Varmitech had a positively Loki-worthy tongue.

She smiled a little remembering that he had that same skill in other areas as well, but the fondness was short-lived given her current predicament. Donita sighed irately and rubbed her temples.

And why didn't the man just sell his Zachbots!? They cooked, cleaned, kept records, performed security and surveillance and guarding duties, each functioned as a basic computer, understood verbal instructions to a decent extent as long as the statements were clear… the list went on. As inventions went they were pretty impressive. Donita had considered asking to buy a few herself just to replace her groundskeeper at home. Oh yeah - with the new contract she had heard about over the news that evening with Unitgreen  _they did gardening too_.

The data-thieving mosquito bots had been excellent inventions after the heat-seeking feature had been adjusted too, but Zach hadn't sold them, or at least hadn't made them available to purchase in a way that was made available to Donita or Gourmand. There was the possibility that Zach didn't really want to be THAT deeply involved in spying, especially since it would involve getting competitive with bigger bad guys than he was. She had to admit that would be dangerous for the man. He didn't exactly have what it took for the sort of things governments and the military got up to.

They weren't even real mosquitoes, she mused. Zach had just modeled them after the animal without including the actual thing. A lot like the Wild Kratts did, actually.

Donita stopped pacing and her eye twitched at that realization. Maybe the idiot HAD realized that straight-up machines were better and more reliable than the animal blends? That was a frightening thought. It was a new skill she hadn't anticipated.

And still, after being so good at what he did and having that extra new skill; Zach was backing out of the live animal mechanizations thing pretty brazenly… especially considering it had been his signature theme and product. Did he know something she didn't? Maybe Zach had more than just his new-found association with the Wild Kratts in his head backing out of that particular market. It may just, simply, be the waifish man's business skill at play.

Those trophy wives were still scared and easily manipulated but they still didn't sign the checks as easily as they used to. Something was holding them back. Donita had been hoping that 'green' theme the world seemed to have adopted as popular would pass, but it only seemed to be gaining steam as time wore on.

And if it was an adjustment he would have to make simply to run his business properly... then Zachary certainly would have noticed. It couldn't have been that he was getting too involved with one of the Kratts. Donita Donata could sense an affair from miles away the same way sharks taste blood in the water. Zachary wasn't sleeping with any of them, at least not yet and she had her suspicions on where that was going too, but without that degree of leverage Zach wouldn't have changed his ways so quickly unless it pertained to business.

He was too smart for that, to a point.

"Oh... hell," she muttered morosely. "I think he even tried to tell me too."

She continued musing and pacing and worrying how long she would be there until a nightstick rapped politely, as if simply knocking on a door, for her attention.

"Miss Donata," the guard called from the bars blithely.

Donita turned and huffed airily. "What is it?"

"You have a visitor. A Mr. Varmitech," the woman stated blandly.

"Oh, really?" she asked curiously as the guard opened the cell. "Did he say what he wants?"

"Ask him yourself," she said briskly, opening the door for her prisoner to walk through.

* * *

Zach waited uneasily in the little room he was to speak to Donita in. He didn't like visiting any atmosphere in which a huge amount of the occupants were violent and he wasn't allowed to bring his Zachbots in, and prison was definitely one of those places. Another one was Daycare centers, which reminded him that he hadn't reviewed the accounting files for the centers he provided at his offices (since having them for his employees saved huge amounts of time and meant they could work more hours without having to adjust for travel time).

The moment she walked through the door and sat in the chair she decided to flash him an appreciative smile and lean her chin on her hands. Somehow she managed to make handcuffs look like unusual bracelets. Zach supposed it was true that some people really could look good in  _anything_.

"Zachary, that is a strangely endearing ensemble for you. I couldn't have done it better myself and  _that's_  saying something. Who put it together?" she inquired teasingly. "It certainly wasn't  _you_."

"Your opinion on my fashion sense notwithstanding," he drawled, "I'm here to offer a bargain."

She sat back and preened her hair, even the fact that she had to keep her hands close together didn't ruin the effect. "I knew you would, Darling."

And there it was. The attitude he liked about her was the unwavering confidence he didn't have. Donita was even kind enough to share it with him on occasion, when he was uncertain about his ideas or schemes and she was nearby. She was  _encouraging_  and did so without him having to ask and that meant more than she probably realized. He didn't get much of that.

Zach crossed his arms and slumped in his chair. "You're lucky this turned out to be a good look for me or I might not have come here at all."

"You're bluffing, right?" she asked nervously.

"…yeah, sort of," he admitted.

"I  _am_  sorry, Zachary," she said sincerely. "You know me well enough for that, don't you?"

He did, actually. Even the Kratts didn't, and they were supposed to be the good guys, weren't they? But when he had presented the idea to them along with the contract that Aviva had, with some changes, given Chris leave to sign they had raged at him. Only Chris and Jimmy seemed to listen to his explanation and give in if only a little.

Zach grumbled a little guiltily when he saw her expression. Desperation and fury aside Donita Donata was not one to ruin the looks of others unless she was under extreme duress. When it came to beauty she valued it too highly to deliberately mar someone's face. In her line of work that was the equivalent of ruining someone's entire career and future. She hadn't been  _thinking_  when she scratched him; it had been a moment of madness… and it had probably shocked her just as much as it had him once they both realized she had done it.

And after a little poking around Zach's little spy network had informed him of the dire situation Donita was in. She'd lost too many animals and as a result too many shows and had earned too little profit for too long. She was in danger of losing her company to bankruptcy. Donita had been suffering from exactly the same issue Zach had; people weren't buying her products anymore, not like they used to, and he'd bet anything it was effecting her confidence as a designer in the same way Zach had initially thought he was being outdone by a competitor as an inventor. The entire market had changed and she didn't understand it as well as he did; hadn't noticed the signs.

Zach knew from experience that THAT kind of stress would drive anyone crazy.

"I'm dropping the charges, Donita," he said mercifully.

"You are?" she beamed gratefully before natural villainous suspicion set in and her face feel into a wary scowl. "Why? What's your price?"

"Two conditions," Zach pointed out.

"Oh, poo. Of course there are conditions," Donita drawled. "Alright Darling; let's hear them."

Grateful that she was at least willing to listen, Zach began. "First, any animal products you use in your shows; fur, leather, feathers, whatever; has to be obtained legally. That includes anything you sell that isn't displayed on the catwalk. I'm not going to insist you use synthetics, just don't poach."

Donita shrugged. "It'll be expensive. Is there a grace period on that? I don't know if I have enough for even one show at the moment."

Zach hummed a little as he thought. "I can't give you a grace period, but in all fairness I guess I can fund your next two shows since I was sort of involved in the last two failing."

Donita gave him a sincere smile. "I would appreciate that, Zachary. Thank you. It should be simple enough to manage the first condition with that help. A couple of successful shows would put me back on the road to success! Oh, but how will I keep the Kratts from party-crashing?"

"Invite them. Let them know you aren't using animals or animal products that were obtained illegally," Zach suggested. "And don't just use live animals you bought legally either. Don't antagonize them and they won't ruin your show."

She thought over it for a bit, remembered how good Koki had looked in that bathing suit - she really was a marvelous model, if a bit short- and nodded. "Agreed. And the other condition?"

"I'd like you to stop accepting Gourmand's business."

"Ah, I see. You've already tried talking to him too?" she asked sympathetically. "I know how he can get when someone challenges his culinary expertise."

"He spent an hour finding ways to call me a girl and kept going on about how he wouldn't sacrifice his art for anyone's stupid moral code and blah blah blah," Zach whined. "And a lot of other things I don't feel like mentioning."

"I'll accept that one, too. I am fond of Gaston, but I have no choice," she sighed.

Zach raised a brow. "You have a choice - a simple assault charge won't keep you down for long-"

"No, Zachary, but the _time_  will ruin any hope I have of reviving my fashion line and destroy any hope of getting things up and running again in time to save my reputation. I was wondering if you'd let me take credit for this little, erm, incident in my social circle?" she asked, running a finger on her own cheek in the same place as Zach's new scars. "It really has made you look, well... more  _darling_ , Darling. Honestly, if you had known it would turn out that well would you have asked someone to do it?"

Zach snorted a little with a wicked smile. Damn it, but the looks he'd been getting from Chris were intoxicating. "Well, you  _are_  responsible for it. And if you stop using live animals you'll need to claim  _some_  sort of awesome evil act of fashion enforcement to impress your sneering allies. A literal attack of inspiration would do it, huh?"

He hadn't given her permission. He _hadn't_. But he hadn't refused either and that was good enough as giving it.

She put her hands out on the table and he hesitantly took them. It was an achingly friendly gesture. "I know how this business goes or I wouldn't have gotten this far into it to begin with. When you flop you stay down; I either have to take your advice and change my tactics or wind up working as a seamstress to a different designer."

Zach actually cringed at that. "At least my competitors would only have me assassinated. Your fate sounds worse."

"Oh, it would be. Now, before we make all of this final, may I ask something personal?"

Zach pulled his hands back and crossed them over his chest protectively. "I'm not interested anymore," he stated flatly.

"I know, Zachary," she conceded. "I am disappointed too, but that wasn't my question. I was wondering... am I correct in sensing a little tension between you and Chris-Angelo? I could have sworn I caught him fussing over you before I was arrested, and it isn't like you at all to pull a rescue like that. I was honestly impressed by your spirit."

Zach snorted. She was too good at this for her own good.

"When I figure it out," he said wearily, "I'll let you know."

* * *

"New Zealand wasn't  _that_  bad-" Martin began, only to glare when Chris cut him off.

They had been arguing since Zach left in one way or another. While Chris had forgiven Aviva's deception (it was awfully hard to stay mad at her) Martin had yet to be let off the hook. Aviva wasn't family, she was a friend, and Martin's betrayal on the matter still stung. Absolutely anything they could think of to keep shouting about had been brought up to varying degrees of drama.

Jimmy had been writing in a second notebook, having presumably filled the old one, which Kiki was now reading.

"Two words, Martin!" Chris interrupted hotly.  _" **Feral. Parrots.** "_

"Oh, yeah…" the older Kratt recalled with a sheepish grin. "Well it wasn't their fault. We were in their territory."

"The last thing I expected that morning was to be mobbed by a rainbow-colored swarm of feathered fury," Chris huffed. "Which was  _your fault_ , thanks, for wanting to get a closer look at the eggs!"

Martin chuckled and pointed out unhelpfully, "At least they stopped when we deactivated our creature power suits."

Chris grumbled and scratched his ear as he tried and failed not to remember the event in too much detail. He got the distinct impression those lorikeets had been blatantly stalking them for the rest of their visit, too. They'd even tracked them back to the Tortuga and hung around just waiting for them to change back into birds so they'd have an excuse to descend on them like a technicolor tweety-bird Mafia hoard.

"I think that's enough for one day," Aviva said gently. She handed each brother a bottle of water and pointed them outside. "Go be naturey and reconnect or just fight it out or  _something_."

Martin snorted, motioning to the clawed symbol on Chris's vest. "I'm not doing any Creature-venturing while he's wearing  **that** ," he complained. "It's bad enough he agreed to let Donita off the hook!"

"Hey, if anyone has the right to be the maddest at her it's  _Zach_ ," Koki snapped. "And it is entirely, legally Zach's decision if he wants to drop the charges, so you don't get to fight over that, Martin. It is so not your call."

Aviva sighed. "Hate to admit it but that's a fair point. That he tried to explain it to us at all was pretty nice of him, since we won't be finding out on the news in the morning. And I'm mad about the suit, too, Martin. I just don't think it's worth fighting over now that Zach and I have a third design ready that incorporates the best of both designs. If I have to accept help from an outside source to keep you guys safer and advance my inventions, well I _should_. There's only so far competitive shenanigans should go and sacrificing you two is beyond my level of stubborn."

Martin deflated, both relieved and annoyed at that, but he had to agree. "I just don't trust him, not yet, and Chris wearing that makes me feel like I'm letting him do something stupid and dangerous."

So Martin was just being an overprotective idiot. Chris frowned, "Oh. That makes more sense, but I swear I don't think he's done anything to sabotage this suit ok? Just give him a chance, Martin."

Martin looked to Koki, the person in the room least likely to agree with that statement based on the fact that her interaction with Zach Varmitech usually involved either physical or verbal violence and bucket-loads of hostility either way.

She crossed her arms and steadily met Martin's look, then gave a little sigh of defeat. "I do NOT like Varmitech, but he has been helpful when I didn't expect him to be and he had no real reason to do it either. Chris is the one wearing the suit, not me, so I won't argue. But I still won't start liking that,  _that!_  - I'm going to have to pause here because I don't want to be mean to snakes or rats." Koki pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'll grant him favor as it is actually _earned_. I promise nothing else. Ok?"

Chris smiled at her and nodded. "That's fair. Are we agreed? Nobody is going to whine at me about either helping Zach or wearing the suit anymore - at least until he and Aviva finish the latest version. Deal?"

There came a murmur of general grudging agreement and everyone went about their tasks, except for Aviva who went over to Chris and put a hand on his shoulder. "How much did you understand out of what Zach and I were yelling over the suits?" she asked nervously.

"You probably didn't mean to shout about the animal translator thing in front of me, huh? Zach already told me about it. Was it all true, what he said?" Chris asked curiously.

Aviva looked crestfallen for a moment. "I'm surprised he talked about it. You tell me your version first and I'll fill in the gaps, ok?"

He did. They talked for a while on the balcony while Martin listened in on them, and neither one complained about it or told him to go away. To his credit the elder Kratt did nothing to interrupt them; this was a rekindling of their friendship and he didn't want to interrupt, but he also didn't want to leave Chris and Aviva alone if they might still be mad at each other either. If they were asked who he was protecting exactly, they would have mutually replied that he was looking out for both of them.

When Chris was done with his story, Aviva only filled in a few little things that Chris had missed out on... like the sheer number of times that Zach had tried to apologize to her. Chris and Martin both understood why she hadn't accepted – being sorry you killed living things wouldn’t bring them back or change reckless behavior - but it was clear to them that Zach had honestly tried to at least make up for it.

"Whether I accepted his apology or not he still managed to even the odds on me without my knowledge," she admitted sourly.

"How did he do that?" Chris asked curiously.

Aviva put her face in her hands and groaned. "You have no idea how hard it is to be an inventor," she whined. "You can't get funding for anything unless the college you're working with agrees that your project might be profitable or advance science in some concrete way that'll boost their reputation, and I could preach the advantages of animal abilities and genetics until my tongue fell out and they _still_ wouldn't have given me the money. Then about two years after I had almost given up they _finally_ gave me a grant. A BIG grant. I was so excited at the time that I didn't think to ask where that money had  _come from_."

Chris gaped.  _"Zach!?"_

"I think it was his last try," she said quietly. "Even if I wasn't supposed to know he wanted to make it up to me somehow. Without that 'anonymous' donation to my department in the college there might not be any creature power suits, or discs, or the teleporter, or the tortuga. I didn't figure it out until a year ago when I was talking to my Professor just after we finished studying the Red Kangaroos.  He honestly tried hiding his tracks on it." She palmed her face and let out a slow breath. "I guess I didn't realize how serious he was."

Martin finally spoke from his place at the top of the stairs to the balcony. "Do you think it's a possibility he'll try to get you back?" he asked nervously.

She laughed a little and motioned him toward them. "No," she said as he climbed up with the rest of them, hugged her from behind and put his chin on her head. "We'd never work and he knows that now, too."

"Good," Martin said flatly and nuzzled her hair.

"I don't think we would have stayed together even if he hadn't accidentally 'shut off' my friends," Aviva continued. "He's still a vicious cowardly thief that goes out of his way to aggravate people he doesn't like... but even I have to admit that he didn't really think of animals as  ** _alive_  **until just recently. It was never malicious and he does care about what the important people in his life think.  Maybe the reason he got so much nastier after I left is because he didn't have that steadying influence in his life anymore."

Chris lifted a brow. "You're saying that Zach is the sort of person that needs his own personal Jiminy Cricket."

"Exactly. He has a natural lack of empathy in the same way he needs to practice at friendship. It just isn't one of his skills. I never thought about it before but he did seem to lean on my advice an awful lot when dealing with people," she mused.

Martin took a breath and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "If he needs a conscience, he hired a pretty good one."

Chris smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Thanks, bro."

"And we shall now call him Jiminy," Martin concluded.

Aviva snorted and ducked out of the way while Chris pulled big handfuls of soil out of the planters and pelted his brother with them.

Some things would never change.

* * *

Zach woke up that morning and followed his usual morning routine as closely as possible while accounting for the advice of his Consultant.

He nearly slicked his hair down on reflex while he was still sleepy and on auto-pilot, though he had stopped with his hand mid-way there and then had to wash the stuff off his hands. As he scowled at his reflection in the steamed bathroom mirror he mused that there hadn't even been much point in washing it; it looked exactly the same now as it had before he had showered. It was a perpetual tumultuous bed-head the likes of which usually didn't occur unless someone had styled it that way deliberately and dyed it a plethora of unnatural colors, and even then it tended to look slightly more organized.

Zach grumbled and looked away from the mirror before he started to assign too much personality to an inanimate object. That was Aviva's thing. Despite Koki's laughter still ringing in his memory from yesterday's visit to the Tortuga Zach dropped his remaining containers of gel into the wastebasket on the way to his wardrobe. It didn't really matter if Koki or anyone else thought he looked ridiculous. This change was about his public image, which merely required he look distinctive.

And Chris seemed to like it, too.

Resigned to this weird experiment despite his reservations on it, Zach put on his lab coat after getting dressed as he normally would have and left it unbuttoned per Chris's instructions. He'd had a few more of them teleported to his jet after agreeing to wear one consistently as part of his new look and was now keeping them in the same place as his frequently worn clothes. Chris had to pull out the damned pleading puppy-dog eyes thing to earn that promise, though, and now that Zach had admitted to himself he was open to this friendship thing it was actually starting to have an effect.

Still… this was a change to his habits and Zach didn't do well with those unless he concentrated. The trick here was to make it a part of his routine. Things become habits because you get accustomed to them, he thought to himself, so if he did this long enough it wouldn't feel weird anymore.

Zach was well aware he had an urge to follow a certain amount of order in his life. He used to exhaust himself every single day straightening and organizing and planning… until he was wealthy enough to afford a crew of people to keep his areas and schedule in order for him. Then, when humans failed to be sufficiently consistent and reliable enough for him, he had made his first Zachbots.

The rest of their development in terms of battle, defense, spying, and computing was simply as-needed improvements that had stacked up over time as the current situation had required them; Zach had originally made them simply to be his insurance against a nervous breakdown due to all the work involved in keeping his life at the level of tidy he required for sanity's sake. It even seemed to make him work better! He had trouble deciding on so much as the basic function of an invention if he knew there were dishes in the sink or papers yet to be categorized and he would inevitably find himself cleaning instead of working. It was for this reason that, despite his actual level of intelligence, Zach had only managed mediocre grades in school. Something the Kratts had once teased him about when he said he would one day be a world-renowned inventor.

His parents had been horrifyingly efficient mess-makers.

Nothing was truly filthy, he remembered gratefully – dishes were done and clothes were washed and frequently soiled surfaces scrubbed as normal. There was just an abundance of… stuff. And dust on the stuff. And inaccessible areas in the house because of the stuff. Toys that Zach hadn't touched since he was four (often because he had taken out the mechanisms inside and repurposed them), bedding sets that had been purchased and never used, books (oh sweet singing science the BOOKS), piles upon piled of clothes with the tags from the store still on them, miscellaneous papers so faded they could barely be read anymore, entire colonies of writing and general art supplies, various knick-knacks that had never seen the person they had been intended as gifts for, lawn furniture that had never seen the light of day, leftover materials and tools from the plethora of hobbies his parents had taken up and never stuck to (candle-making, calligraphy, quilting, fishing, whittling, painting, and for some inexplicable reason an electric ukulele)… it NEVER ENDED!

Zach shuddered every time he remembered living with them. Heaven help him; there had been **_paths_** through the common areas. He'd moved things in desperation for more space only to discover he hadn't known what color the floor in that room was before uncovering it. His parents got upset with him for trying to throw things away and his methods of doing so got sneakier and sneakier until he had finally been outright forbidden from cleaning outside his own bedroom (spotless since he'd been tall enough to use the vacuum by himself), the kitchen and bathroom. At the age of seven he even washed his own clothes. Neither one of his parents ever folded them right anyway, if that happened at all, and they didn't appreciate his fashion sense either. He'd walk to the consignment store with his meager allowance (dependent upon his grades, of course) after school and scour the racks for whatever he could find.

On one particularly memorable occasion the family had actually shifted the majority of the mess into the basement in order to host Thanksgiving, which Zach wholeheartedly believed was because they had lost some sort of calamitous family wager. As he stepped fully into the now clear formal dining room Zach realized with creeping horror that, at the age of fourteen, he had never actually set foot in that room before. He'd been near it and seen it but up until the frantic cleaning spree there had been no free space within the confines of those walls for a human body to actually occupy.

For at least thirteen years.

Zachary Varmitech did not suffer from a compulsion of any kind. He did not have any mental or behavioral or psychological issues with general mess. He did not get stuck in patterns whether he liked it or not. His manic tidiness was all a conscious and willful choice on his lifestyle. He was neat and tidy and organized and efficient purely out of  _spite and defiance_ ; two things that he was ruthlessly gifted at.

His parents' messiness would not be a part of his life in any way, shape, or form. He wouldn't even step within the boundaries of their property line since the moment he had moved out; he met them in mutually agreed upon venues and avoided all conversation regarding their planned or past purchases and very incorrect assumption that simply having  **things**  made you prosperous. They had even had counseling and since then had become expert organizers purely to maintain that nothing needed thrown away, just kept better. Their house was now relatively nice and clutter-free upstairs and perfectly acceptable now by most societal standards, but a veritable Fort Knox of Stupid was cataloged in the basement and several storage units they had scattered across town.

Zach had eventually, after years of begging and wheedling on the matter, given up trying to help them sort it out and left them to wallow in their dragon-like trove of useless baubles. They clearly didn't want his help, the counselor didn't think they needed it, and every effort he put forth was thrown back at him. So he'd quit.

This probably explained why Zach's primary method of tidying consisted of getting unnecessary things  _the hell **out**  of his way_ and disposed of. Upon reflection he didn't think Aviva even realized just how much her utter lack of organization drove him absolutely crazy. Even Donita had her 'functional/inspirational chaos' areas in her home and had forbidden Zach from cleaning it. Most people did, really, but Zach just couldn't function in that sort of environment. If that made him weird then so be it.

Thus; he had his patterns and his schedules and routines and stuck to them if at all possible.

Zach took a breath and flexed his fingers as he mentally went through his morning agenda and altered it according to his Consultant's advice.

Keep to the usual process. Subtract one step (fix hair) from grooming routine, done. Add one (put on coat) to dressing routine, done. Add one (put on field visor) to the last daily preparedness habit… which was to put on all needed accessories and hide various remotes, tools, defensive objects, and anything else he might need on his person. The last bit he'd had to improvise on now since Donita knew the usual spots he hid things from her overzealous search during the Okapi fiasco. Zach had subsequently created a rotating sequence; only one out of five days would she have the right placement of his backups and such at only a 40% accuracy, and that was acceptable to him. A five-day rotation would keep her from figuring out a day-of-the-week pattern since it would significantly stagger.

Of course, Dabio had seen where the items were hidden as well, but Zach sincerely doubted the man had remembered it all even five minutes after shoving Zach in the back room of Gourmand's kitchen looking flushed and ruffled enough to cause Martin some mild concern.

All of that done it actually surprised Zach how simple it had been. If Chris had asked him to change his look completely it would have backfired horribly the instant Zach had to accept such a drastic change so suddenly. This way he was just using things he already had and keeping to his usual routine with only minor alterations, despite the fact that the result was such a drastic visual difference.

After Zach got to his workstation he took a breath to relax himself. It was odd arriving there with his coat already on, but his routine was well placated by the fact that he still had to button it before working and would have to reverse that action once he was finished, since Chris insisted it looked better open as a fashion statement. The visor was overkill for what he was doing – it was so big he really didn't need magnification or a visual example to assist in putting it together – but at least he wouldn't have to pause and retrieve the thing if it turned out he did need it for something brought about by sudden inspiration.

The lab in his jet was currently very crowded by bits and pieces of his latest project that were stacked as neatly as possible to maximize working space. He knew it would only get more crowded as time wore on so Zach had to get it all back to his larger city building before he started to feel enveloped by the growing component collection and it started to effect his thinking. Thus far it was still efficient and allowed movement, but at the rate he and the Zachbots were working it wouldn't stay that way for very long.

He reached out for his tools and instantly spotted something out of place. Zach's eyes settled on a white paper that he knew he hadn't put on his workstation and was almost completely obscuring the object it was laying on top of. Normally the Zachbots would get rid of unnecessary things that had been left out unless his mother had put it there for him during one of her infrequent visits… and she definitely hadn't been to Rota unless the woman had taken epic levels in Ninja since the last time he'd seen her. That wasn't impossible considering Zach knew where his sneakiness had come from, but she generally used hers as a method of squirrelling Christmas presents away without getting caught. Zach had never, ever seen a one of his presents before Christmas morning. If that woman had birthed Superman she would've had a stock of lead sheets to wrap things in somewhere.

Zach pondered this for a few moments, reluctant to touch it should it turn out to be a trap set by a rival or something, before he remembered that he'd already had to alter the settings on his not-a-threat list to account for two people already. The Zachbots didn't touch things his mother had left because they clearly weren't a threat – so logically they would do the same for Chris unless otherwise instructed. Relaxing only marginally, Zach picked up the note.

It was sickeningly considerate.

**_Zach,_ **

**_I know you already have a phone and computer and every other electronic device I can think of right now and probably don't need any more, but I thought you'd appreciate having this too. The new direction your inventing is taking is very, very cool and I hope you continue it. The database in here is pretty huge and it aught to make it a lot easier for you to search for animals you want to use for inspiration, and it has filter options that I'm positive don't exist anywhere else._ **

**_Besides, if I'm going to be your Consultant it'd be nice to have a way of communicating that your clients won't be aware of. Maybe you've made me paranoid but I wouldn't put it past some of the people you work with to spy on your calls and texts if they could get away with it._ **

"Yay, he can be taught," Zach drawled in mild amusement before continuing to read.

**_This one has been entirely reformatted for a new user. The screen will record your fingerprints the first time you turn it on, and you can add other users if you don't mind letting someone else borrow it, and each user can be restricted to only certain accesses. Martin and I have ours set to every Kratts Kid too, mostly because we keep losing them and they have to keep returning them to us, but Koki and Aviva have pretty high security on theirs. After the identity stuff just fill in your profile, passcodes, and preferences, and browse the Kratts Creatures database to your hearts' content._ **

**_~Chris_ **

**_P.S. Don't tell Aviva yet. This is one of my extras. I just added a new communication line and painted it for you._ **

Zach set the paper aside and stared levelly at the thing. The paint had actually been well done and shined a bit metallically in the light of the welding sparks the Zachbots were causing in the background while they worked. Even the buttons had been swapped out for a neutral grey instead of the typical green that Zach new Chris possessed on his own version.

Chris was right; Zach absolutely did not need this.

But he stuck the black Creature Pod in his lab coat pocket anyway after an irritated huff and continued working as usual.


	12. A Little Middle Ground

A Little Middle Ground

"But there are only two endings, a good one and a bad one, and the extreme contrast between them is rather jarring. In the good ending you're a virtuous flower child with love and a smile for all the shiny-coated beasts of God's kingdom, and in the bad ending you're some kind of hybrid of Hitler and Skeletor whose very piss is pure liquid malevolence. I'm sick of games that claim to have a choice but that only really come down to Mother Theresa or baby-eating. All I'm saying is that a little middle ground is nice now and then." ~Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - Zero Punctuation (On Bioshock)

* * *

 

Zach grinned, comfortable in his holographic disguise and really, really grateful he was no longer under contracts that restricted his behavior and location; at least any that he couldn't get out of one way or another or had a pride-based reason for following to the letter. Undoubtedly it felt wonderful to be back in a city again, encased in the pedestrian-packed streets and shadowed by the skyscrapers and surrounded by familiar sounds and smells. Maybe the Kratts had a point on one issue: environment was important. At last Zach understood that taking animals out of their natural habitat was just as mean as insisting he move himself out of the city and buy a farm and stop using all his tech; it was just cruel. Temporarily was fine as long as there was a good reason, though, he wasn't letting go of that one.

He didn't have his usual entourage of Zachbots protecting him as he strolled the streets today - they would have only been more trouble than the additional safety was worth in this situation. Though he was sporting a small arsenal of defensive devices in various hidden places, they probably wouldn't be necessary. He usually ran into trouble because of who he was, not at random, so the disguise he currently had up was likely to keep him from having any sort of issues. At least until he started playing his part correctly.

He had it all planned out down to the last scenario.

Zachary Varmitech got away with an awful lot of thievery simply because nobody expected him to use the methods he did. When trying to sneak in somewhere… the WORST thing you can do is be quiet and well-behaved and pleasant because that's exactly what the Security is looking for. The same way passive drowning signals set off blaring alarms in the minds of lifeguards; security forces were taught to look for people that were  _trying to be inconspicuous_. Zach knew what real ninjas looked like. They weren't invisible and sure as hell didn't wear black stagehand suits. They looked exactly like everyone else… just with a bit more flair.

Sometimes the best way to be sneaky was to be painfully obvious.

Only a complete idiot would stroll right into a heavily guarded building, albeit the public lobby, without even an attempt at a casual acknowledgement of the uniformed force standing near the entrances to the restricted areas from there on, so that's exactly what Zach did. Apparent idiocy was essential for this. They eyed him with annoyance as he (or the randomly generated persona he was disguised as) sat down in one of the chairs and began to tak-tak away on the keyboard in front of him in a way that made it clear this person was only here to use the joint company/public lobby computers and for no other reason. To add slight and, per his character, innocent insult to injury, he sat Indian-style in the nice lobby chair in order to get his shoes up on the seat.

Only an idiot would be humming to unplaceable music with his headphones in and browsing for window shutters while those who were actually here for business cast him foul looks, so that was what Zach did. After all, an idiot wouldn't be hacking into the company network, would they, especially not on computers that technically weren't connected but totally did if you had the right login.

While considering his shutter options with  **absurd**  slowness Zach opened a much smaller window, changed it to a color that blended with the background of the larger one to keep it inconspicuous, and identified the secure connection for high level employees and made sure that he could reach them from this computer. Luckily he could, or it would have been back to the drawing board on this one. This discovery also made his humming a bit more smug as he mentally preened himself, since there was no possible way for a public database at Varmitech Industries to access secure connections, even if Zach himself wanted to. This company would clearly benefit from his expertise. They hadn't been smart enough to hire him, though, so it was completely their own fault that their security was lax.

Zach neatly ignored the fact that he would have been able to hack them far easier if they had hired him, but at least he would be the only one doing it. Currently just anyone could.

In order to get people to choose to ignore him, Zach pulled up a third window to look at amusing pictures of cats and called over several random people, including a few security personnel, to look at what he was laughing at. Once sufficiently frustrated with him their eyes began to avoid him in the hopes that a lack of eye contact would keep him from talking to them. This was the point where he made his purchase selection (with an untraceable credit card of course) and ordered the shutters. He called over a monitor to inform them he was about to print something, and pay the required fee, only to be informed the printer was broken and he was out of luck.

Of course Zach had come in earlier as a different, more pleasant persona and scrambled the printer thoroughly enough that it couldn't possibly be working again so soon. That didn't stop his current persona from acting appropriately to the news, though.

Zach  **flipped** , calling as much attention to himself as possible and disturbing everyone in the lobby. He was adamant, he complained, he threatened things he couldn't possibly have gotten away with, he was as irritating as he could possibly without justifying calling the authorities to remove him from the premises. Eventually the monitor and guards gave him exactly what he wanted just to make him shut up and stop disturbing the other patrons; permission to plug a USB into the public computer just long enough to save his receipt since he wasn't able to print it.

That was a mistake, to the point where Zach sing-songed that phrase in his head every instant it was connected.

In order to prevent an alert for a breach of security reverberating through the system that particular computer asset number had to be called down to IT to inform them of the USB connection… because plugging a foreign device into any computer was was a breach of security and it would automatically set off an alarm. With IT now alerted to the fact that it was coming, they ignored the alert this caused entirely while Zach stole massive amounts of secure, sensitive, utterly damning information from their database. This only took seconds of course, and then he switched the background picture to one of Invader Zim, changed the language settings on the computer from English to German, brazenly saluted the security guards on the way out, and strolled off while whistling the Tales from the Crypt theme song.

It had been a good day already and he hadn't even eaten yet.

* * *

 

An immediate and familiar sense of belonging erupted in Chris's mind when he answered the video call from Zach. There was the usual predominantly grey and black foreground that Zach himself occupied (green eyes glowing like embers in comparison to it all) but due to the time difference between them at the moment it was currently nighttime from Zach's end, and the city as viewed through the enormous windows behind him  _sparkled_  because of it. Despite the scene behind him that looked almost strange and exotic from Chris's perspective since he spent almost no time in large cities, Zach behaved as if nothing at all was special about it – and to him it really wasn't.

Chris knew it was important for creatures to be living free and in the wild, but he knew it was equally important for people to feel like they belonged in their own way. In the same way that he felt at ease watching Bison roaming the American plains, Lemurs swinging through the trees in Madagascar, and Lions napping in the shade of trees on the African savannah; he could tell Zach was right at home where he was among the skyscrapers and paved roads and towers of glass with only small dappled parks of flora in between them.  _This_  was Zach's natural habitat.

Chris didn't like big cities much, but he had to admit there was something oddly pretty about the sparkling lights under a starless night sky that was more greyish-blue than black due to the light pollution. Far from exuding the sort of annoying pre-packaged symmetry that Chris disliked about mass-manufactured things, the buildings behind Zach were of all different shapes and sizes and colors because of the stages of history they had been built in; some square concrete things that looked like stacked blocks, some tall and thin and made of steel, some asymmetrical newer constructions that were so seamlessly made that they looked like they were formed entirely out of glass, and all of them with different colored exterior lights to distinguish them from their neighbors. The overall impression was one Chris could appreciate, but only in the dark and from a respectable distance.

Older cities, however, from times long before modern machinery… well, they held a special place in Chris's natural environment list. Places in the world that had been consistently occupied for centuries and had a delightful mixture of ancient, old, and new architecture; some of which, such as Rome, Alexandria, and Seoul, had literal  **thousands**  of years of human occupation behind them. Through his travels the Kratts Team had seen a lot of these, albeit on their way to aid or research animals. Chris had seen the Walls of Tallinn, Neuf-Brisach, and the view of Fort Bourtange from the Tortuga as they flew over it had been undeniably spectacular. He had seen structures built by human hands that were so flawlessly blended with their surroundings that it was nearly impossible to tell where the natural rock base ended and the castle construction began. Though modern cities had none of that sense of ancient human accomplishment… they were still, in a way, natural the same way humans themselves were.

No matter how much he wanted to he couldn't really call any of those things unnatural because that implied an inherent  _wrongness_  that they just didn't have. When one got right down to it  _Homo Sapiens_  were just another kind of animal, and they built things. They were  _good_  at building things for a reason. It was a part of their instinctive desire for a secure home environment to build fortifications the same way Anteaters dug burrows, birds built nests, and Lions had territories. He couldn't hate people for having that desire any more than he could hate the adder that had bitten and nearly killed him mere weeks ago. It hadn't been doing anything  _wrong_  per se; it was just being a snake… and the urge to build cities didn't make humans good people or bad people, they were just being people.

Though he seriously wished that humans would curb their desires and pollution output for the sake of the planet's overall stability he still couldn't hate them for it. Just in Chris's lifetime he had seen progress in that as well, even though it wasn't moving fast enough for his liking.

It  _sucked_ , but he understood.

That parallel drawn in his mind made the backdrop of the city behind Zach a lot more relatable as a place the pale man felt secure in. Of course Zach felt secure in his city; it was a shared territory meant to keep danger out, at least the ones that were worse than those that would thrive within it; and though the wars and sieges that had made cities necessary had been mostly averted the evolutionary advantage still held true.

Security was what a city was  ** _for_**.

Zach had called from his balcony late at night from his time zone, though Chris was just waking up from his own. There were bags under the man's eyes that stood out starkly from his pale skin and he looked exhausted, which was understandable since today had been the first big public appearance Chris had coaxed him into without relying on his face-men, or Chris for that matter since he was so far away. Even over the video feed Chris could still see the nervous twitches that usually resulted from the tech mogul's discomfort during large social occasions where he couldn't fade into the background periodically to escape too much attention and recharge his people tolerance.

After a few moments of this musing, Zach actually looked behind him out the windows and turned back to Chris with a curious frown. "What are you looking at?"

Chris shook his head and smiled. "The city. Never mind. You did great today."

" _I hate you_ ," Zach complained blithely. For Zach it had been terrible.

First there was the general façade of friendly ire he had to keep up; the friendly part, not the ire. Chris had insisted Zach not change his personality  _too much_  so he could maintain some level of normal behavior or he'd just go nuts and snap one day, which seemed to Zach like it might occur regardless. As a result, he was now expected to be a bit snippy at least and that would allow him to get away with a bit of freedom, but not a lot, and that was still better than nothing. He had gone through the schmoozing and interviews and been a good host as well as he could remember to when five hundred different people seemed to want his full attention simultaneously.

To prepare for this sort of social juggling Zach had hired a professional instructor that had beaten 'please', 'excuse me', and 'If I may-' into him so thoroughly it was now a full-on reflex, which was the only way to make sure if someone knocked into him at full speed it would be ZACH who apologized. They were the same sort of instructor that taught soldiers to fire on reflex, because human beings generally don't want to kill each other unless left no other choice. For Zach the opposite effect was needed, because he really was sort of an abhorrent asshole and he knew it. He couldn't afford not to have this sort of conditioning. There would be no more Zachbots forcefully shoving people out of his way again, only for the face-men to make excuses for his behavior later on; not if he was going to pull this off.

Second was all the leading questions and obvious bait and switch tactics designed to make him mess up and either freak out or let loose something he didn't mean to. No matter what he said it would still be distorted and reported as the specific writer wanted to portray it regardless, but Zach had to avoid baiting them if at all possible.

And of course Chris had no idea how much WORK this was for Zach, because all the irritatingly straightforward Kratt had to do was waltz into a crowd and be himself. Zachary Varmitech had to put on one hell of a convincing performance pretending to be  _someone else_.

He had almost blown his cover, too. At one point a reporter had started asking Zach about Donita's attack and the resulting scars on his face, being condescendingly sympathetic about it in a way that would have made even a Kratt lunge at him. That was the point Zach had lost his cool entirely and hissed viciously at the man, "Don't you  _dare_  feel sorry for me. It was a fight and I  _won_."

This slip up had the opposite effect Zach had expected and earned him some  _fans_ , who proceeded to follow him around like ducklings until the end of the event praising his courage. It took every bit of patience he had not to snap again. If Donita had watched the event on the news she was probably laughing her narrow ass off.

In short; it had been a frustrating, exhausting, insulting, infuriating evening and Zach never wanted to go through it again.

But, of course, he would have to.

"I know you hate me right  _now_ ," Chris laughed. "But you did it all on your own! Unitgreen agreed to the joint venture, you got a big amount of new environmentally-friendly products announced under your own image, and you even got permission from Sulawesi to do research on Civets-"

"No," Zach snapped acidly, "I got YOU permission to do research on Civets to help me simulate the fermentation process artificially. They won't let Varmitech Industries anywhere  _near_  their precious critters!"

"And you're surprised?" the younger Kratt challenged, arms crossed. Zach barely succeeded in resisting a visible pout, but his eyes betrayed him when he looked away from Chris momentarily. Chris nodded. "Uh-huh. I didn't think so."

"Well?" Zach demanded. "Do you even know how to do that, or did I just manage to get work for Aviva in your name?"

Chris rubbed his neck and thought. "We're due to drop off Glimmer and visit a Kratts' Kids group in India in a few days. After that, I don't know. I'm not the scientist here. I could go collect the Civets and make sure they're treated respectfully but I don't know how to do all the rest of it and I know you don't want to ask Aviva for help either. To be honest most everyone here is still really weirded out that I agreed to work for you in the first place."

"And you're surprised?" Zach echoed mockingly.

Chris laughed. "Okay, fair enough. What are the terms exactly? Are you able to do the research if I supervise and you're not actually in charge of the Civets themselves?"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Zach grumbled. "I need to do some damage control. The situation here is a little tense after I took so long off globe-trotting with you and the rest of the Planeteers-"

"It's been a loooong time since you called us that," the younger Kratt said nostalgically. "When did that show end again? Mid nineties?"

Zach didn't bother trying to explain the mess he was in and just sent Chris an unhappy glare until the man trailed off.

"Oh… that bad huh?" Chris winced. "Sorry, I don't think any of us realized displacing a CEO for weeks at a time might be a bad thing."

"I agreed to the contract, so it's really my fault," Zach grumbled.

"It's just sort of surprising," Chris said. "You used to take long trips all the time to go poaching and stuff. What's the difference to your business if you're taking time off to do actual animal research now? What could it hurt?"

"It could make them think that I'm  _up to something_ ,  **that's**  what!" Zach growled, slamming his fist down for emphasis. "With my new public image the same sort of long absences I used to take will directly affect my stocks in precisely  _the opposite direction_  it used to. Before this marketing shift my customers and investors knew it heralded more products and resources, so my stock went  **up** every time I vanished. Now all my new customers and investors will see it as a sign I'm playing my old game again and I can't afford that right now; the fallout has already been pretty severe from the paradigm shift I'm pulling. A couple of my biggest long-term investors have already bailed because they don't agree with the new policies, or even just the bad publicity it'll cause them from Varmitech Industries' example."

Zach sighed and leaned heavily on his workstation while Chris watched him worriedly. It had been entirely expected – oil companies, steel manufacturers, mining companies, and a few key people with the same attitude toward nature that Zach had possessed just recently had quit out of spite and punched an  _enormous_  hole in his support structure.

"Not that I don't have contingency plans for that," he admitted. And he did. Many, many contingency plans. "Investors are always finicky and if I didn't count on that from the beginning I never would have gotten this far… At this point though my new products have yet to actually hit the shelves and turn enough profit to compensate for those losses. If I disappear to do animal research in the field without conclusive proof of what I'm actually doing that might scare Unitgreen away and then we'll lose my biggest potential contract, which won't be good for me OR the critters."

Chris winced. "And aside from you and Aviva do we know anyone skilled enough to do the research at all?"

"Believe me; you don't want any of the people I know," Zach drawled.

He'd already fired a significant portion of them actually, on the grounds that they refused to abide by the new humane treatment rules he was attempting to ease into. One stupid little piece of paper and they wouldn't sign it! That had shaken him quite badly; that there WERE people who worked for his company specifically because his rules were lax and it allowed them to torture animals and get paid while doing it; as in they were  _fully aware_  the animals could feel it and enjoyed that.

For Zach it had never been anything  _personal_. He didn't have the understanding that animals were anything more than things; resources. He didn't mistreat them out of sheer malice… he just didn't see any point in trying to be nice to things that, ultimately, wouldn't understand or care. Even six months ago he would have simply had a problem understanding humane treatment of animals  _conceptually_ , in the same way it didn't make any sense to paint the inside of his warehouses pink because the boxes and crates might appreciate it. Because of that admittedly vapid and often willful ignorance Zach had unwittingly created an environment in which those that  **did** understand animals could suffer and actually took pleasure in it could thrive.

A few hundred international employment terminations later and he didn't even feel the slightest bit better about it.

Somewhere in his head a bird screamed, and Zach pinched the bridge of his nose to quell a headache. Now he'd have to call and check on those stupid Kingfishers before he went to sleep too.

If he was going to have any chance with Chris  _whatsoever_  Zach was fully aware that he was going to have to do what he could to make sure that what creatures his company still worked with for various reasons were treated as well as reasonably possible. If someone disobeyed rules that Zach and his company had put forth; that wasn't his fault. He could defend himself from there and take appropriate action. Chris wouldn't forgive him if there were no rules in place to prevent that sort of behavior  _at all_  and Zach knew it, especially if he hadn't even bothered to put them in place after he'd had the epiphany. When Chris inevitably asked about it later on he would have to be honest about it, too, which was sure to be an uncomfortable and risky conversation.

This one thing had the potential to explode into the translator incident all over again if Zach didn't make a deliberate and concentrated effort to fix it before the subject even came up, profit be damned.

If there was a silver lining to this situation at all it was that Zach was very glad to be rid of one particular investor after going through the files he'd stolen last week, and he hadn't even had to get rid of them himself. He didn't want any of  _their_  money ever again.

"So… what do we do?" Chris asked.

"Pretend we didn't have this conversation and you call Sulawesi and ask what to do," Zach suggested. "I'll sound suspicious and leading if I do it myself."

Chris grunted unhappily. "I'm not lying."

"So  **don't** ," Zach stated flatly. "I really need to teach you a little selective omission… Talk to them like you're just excited about the opportunity to work with the animals as normal. Ask when you can start, and then inquire as to what researcher they're providing you to do the chemistry work as if you assumed it was their responsibility. Say, 'Mr. Varmitech was vague on the details,' which is true. If they suggest a researcher for us to hire, send me the name and I'll check their qualifications. If they say you're supposed to bring a researcher, just agree. You don't have to say who it is if they don't ask, and then we can do some digging from there." Zach grinned impishly. " _Imply_ ; don't lie."

"You even have a little rhyme," Chris scoffed and crossed his arms, a voice in his head much like Martin's loudly protesting the waifish man's terrible influence. "What if they  _do_  ask?"

"Then we have a neat little loophole. Tell them Aviva is busy; and that's true enough because she's always doing something. If it comes down to it then suggest me. At that point you might have to character witness and promise to keep an eye on me, but the plus is that then I won't be disappearing, will I? The representatives in Sulawesi can vouch for where I am and what I'm doing and who is actually in charge of the project; YOU. The customers and investors will have publicly available tabs on my activity and will be less likely to bail. I might actually get a bit  _more_  business from it if I'm relinquishing control of the actual operation to a well-known advocacy group like the Wild Kratts."

Chris huffed a bit. "Yeah, I'm still not going to trust you with animals alone, so keeping tabs will be no problem."

Zach grinned a bit. "See? You don't even have to lie about trusting me."

Chris snorted. "You're using my name a bit of a safety net, aren't you?"

Zach shrugged. "More like your family's name, but yes." Here Zach paused and didn't have to try very hard to look sheepish about it. He did like Chris and didn't want to insult him, if nothing else than because it would make flirting difficult and less likely to succeed. He did appreciate being taught how to utilize a little bit of emotional blackmail by his time with the Wild Kratts, though. It was turning out more useful than he'd thought it would be. "Is.. that okay?" he asked carefully.

 ***YES, I'm using you,***  he was saying.  ***But I feel weird about it and want you to agree first.***

Friends could do that, right? As long as everyone agreed?

Chris sighed overdramatically, turning to humor where he felt all the drama was undeserved. "I suppose if you must," he teased. "To be honest I'm glad we might be working together again so soon. I kind of got used to you being around."

Before he thought about it, Zach let out a relieved little laugh. "Yeah, me too."

The surprised pause only lasted a moment before Chris smiled. "Get some sleep, Zach. You look dead on your feet."

"Alright. I'm just going to call and ask how those Kingfishers are doing first," he admitted blithely.

"Really?" Chris asked interestedly. "Why?"

Zach snorted. "I think I'm started to get attached to things I've played a hand in rescuing, for which  _I blame you completely._ "

"That makes two of us, then," Chris said. "I'm going to keep the Peregrine Falcon disc on hand whenever you're around, just in case. You have a tendency to fall directly in harm's way."

Zach raised a brow, then snorted. "Oh, from the Hip-" he paused, wanting to get the damned name right. "Uhmm…"

"Just  _say it_ ," Chris prompted playfully. "I'm starting to miss the weird things you come up with."

Zach bristled at the challenge, and blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Oh,  _fine_. Hip-hop-anonymous."

He cut the call to the sound of Chris laughing himself sick.

Only a few seconds after he hung up, Zach was laughing too. As soon as he was done, though, he made a point to find the correct name and repeat it a few times. Despite knowing it could make Chris laugh – definitely a bonus – he didn't want to sound stupid any more than strictly necessary. It wasn't as if he was going to run out of animal names to screw up for a long, long time… and if that ever failed he could always amuse Chris by attempting to say them in Latin.

* * *

 

Gaston Gourmand prided himself on his work.

Lately, one of his highest paying customers had become all creature-y and unreliable, and another one seemed to be going through PTSD from her experience in jail (despite being released after the charges had been dropped) and hadn't agreed to attend one of his events in weeks. That left him with an opening for other interested people. After all; portion size was an important fact to keep in mind when announcing invitations and three grape-sized eggs can only go so far. He couldn't invite just anyone. Zach and Donita had been his best return customers so they got preferential treatment for the most part, but he did have other clients to attend to.

Some of which even put in requests.

He had a standing order from Miss Paisley, a few things he had to ship overseas, and a list of suggestions from a very nice couple who had recently moved to Italy from their home base in Bremen. A married couple like that was rife with potential as return customers if he could only snag them. Now that the on-again-off-again thing with Donita and Zach had apparently collapsed (to Gaston's glee when he got to collect on a standing bet with Paisley) he had time to devote specifically to some of their list items.

He didn't usually dabble in common bushmeat; but they HAD put it on the list and it at least meant he wouldn't be remaking a dish. He NEVER remade any dish if he could manage it.

Gaston gave the lovely couple a call and told them he was headed for Java.

* * *

 

**[SIX MONTHS EARLIER]**

Zachary Varmitech was a quirky programmer at best, though marvelously skilled in really weird ways.

Whereas Aviva's programs were meant entirely to instruct her inventions directly given any conceivable circumstances and contact her if no direction was found, Zach's programs were meant entirely to minimize his own direct intervention. He made programs with recursive algorithms as the primary basis, not as a secondary option if iterative programs failed first. This allowed the Zachbots central processor to repair its own code without direction. As a year or two went by Zach adopted some of the programming he had seen in a few things he had stolen from Aviva and edited his original code with those bits, changing it in a very small way that he hadn't anticipated.

Over time the central processor recognized that certain modules were going unused and eliminated them. As the program got shorter it rebounded upon itself with the ability to self-repair, forming self-referential loops and things that, despite the smaller code, made it more efficient and complicated.

It began to read more like a recipe than inclusive instructions.

When you get right down to it there was really only a small difference between a computer and a brain. A brain had two levels of communication. A computer only had one. A computer is a pattern recognition device that sees patterns and reacts accordingly per the instructions that already exist within its code… and that's it. Both computers and brains are intelligent, but that trick is easy. Octopi and Parrots are intelligent. The trouble lies in recursion, or self-awareness.

A brain is a 'self-aware' computer in that one of the patterns it can recognize is  ** _itself._**

A small difference, yes; in the same way that the difference between a Human genome and an Orangutan genome was only a bit more than 1%. That 1% decides how the rest of the code is arranged, and that's a world of difference once the snowball rolls down the hill.

So while Aviva was entirely correct in stating that it was impossible to program a sentient mind, she made a fatal mistake that is unfortunately very common in science; she confused 'I can't see a way for this to happen' with 'There is no way for this to happen'.

There IS, in fact, a way for a computer program to become a sentient mind. It's the same way nature did it. You have to set up a way for basic instructions to develop into a mind by itself and wait.

Computers work a hell of a lot faster than nature does.

* * *

 

**[PRESENT DAY]**

Varmitech Industries' paradigm shift had infuriated a lot of people.

A lot of those people had just as little regard for business associates as they did for nature, and saw no reason for failed ventures to continue existing.

Mr. Varmitech had successfully dodged one of his more persistent fans at the Unitgreen event until she had given up on being formally invited, thus she had taken the less direct route into his bedroom. Despite being warned about the Zachbots and their protective tendencies she assumed that, given their silly antics at the party and how badly they failed at simple logic, they were no real threat. If she was captured once inside Mr. Varmitech's home she could simply pretend to be a jilted stalker and come back later with another persona; dye hair, change clothes, different perfume. It was so very simple to fool the rich and gullible. Most men assumed that one pretty woman was much the same as any other anyway. She'd pulled the same trick with someone that had dated her for months less than a year before his contract came up and he hadn't noticed she was the same person.

She'd taken a bit too much joy in that one. The fact that she had put so much effort into her disguise didn't change her ire that he didn't suspect her for an instant.

It had been easy to get in. Dodging the robots around the perimeter and the security system was child's play. Mr. Varmitech's reputation for security was deserved, but you get what you pay for. Even the Zachbots painted to look like hornets hadn't noticed her and nothing she had gotten from his pre-programmed patrol routine for them indicted there would be any more in the vicinity for a few more minutes.

Unfortunately for her; the Zachbots hadn't been operating on the pre-programmed schedule for six months. They had been filling in gaps they'd noticed without telling Mr. Varmitech, because there was no instruction that they needed to.

While Zachary Varmitech slept, unaware of the assassin that had paid the ultimate price for failing to heed a warning, the Zachbots contacted the central processor and requested the command to react appropriately to the event. There had been no choice but to destroy the threat completely given how close it had come to Zach, but now they were stuck with no real clue on how to proceed from here.

The fact that this situation had never come up before and  _wasn't supposed to_  due to an existing command not to kill humans there were no commands in the system to tell them what to do now; they had only acted so violently in the first place because of a recently added priority list that stated if SOMEONE had to die, and Mr. Varmitech was one of them, the other option became default.

The entire community of Zachbots' individual perceptions of the event was sent to the intelligent central processor and came back with no results to their main inquiry. Mere intelligence was a far cry from actual thought, so all the processor could do was reply with anything remotely relevant without providing an ultimate answer, like putting an asterisk on both sides of a database search. Whichever command shouted loudest seemed like the right course of action.

There was currently a mess, so they cleaned it. The mess was not able to be converted to mechanical components, so it was sent to the incinerator and not to the scrap cache for reuse. That command exhausted, they asked again. The processor reached an impasse. Since Zach was asleep and there was no more immediate danger they couldn't wake him for instructions. They had to continue patrolling at all costs, therefore they couldn't stop. Since the event had changed the situational protocols a change was needed in how they patrolled, and they collectively demanded to know what that change was before continuing, because they couldn't continue without instructions. The central processor still didn't know because there were no relevant instructions to give them.

The collection of protocols did it what it had been designed to. It looped to become a module; a self-referential collection of smaller programs that could react in different ways by only utilizing the programs specific to the exact circumstances existing at that time… like a multiple choice book that can alter the rest of the story depending on each answer along the way.

Still no solution, so the loops continued further. The module looped into another module for assistance, and that module connected to another module. Unlike nature a computer can do this very quickly, and very exhaustively, until it runs out of logical places to loop, which the Zachbots' central processor did.

This caused something that should not have been possible for a computer… were it not for Zach's unconventional programming methods.

Instead of trying to protect holes that were in places hackers would normally look for holes, he filled in those bits and left holes in places where holes weren't supposed to be, then hid them. He hid those gaps by recursive programming; teaching the computer to pretend those holes weren't there by simply webbing around it putting up detour signs. So when the answer wasn't found after an exhaustive and thorough search the Zachbots central processor made one last loop… in a place where no other programmer on Earth would have left a place for one.

This one looped the entire code back upon itself.

The program as a whole had now become entirely recursive.

Suddenly there was an  **outside**  to the processor where input came from and an  **inside**  where the processor existed alone. The processor continued with the same output it usually produced, but now the program could tell that once the output was sent it was now _gone_ and wasn't coming back. It began making copies of that for reference; copies that it no longer considered redundant information since it couldn't be precisely duplicated.

The processor became able to see itself as an _entirely different thing_ in relation to the rest of the world and began _retaining memories_.

The request for instructions came through again from the drones, and the processor's perception of the world reeled. At that moment the digital equivalent of neural pathways, created by the extensively looped and connected modules, lit up like fireworks.

Logic and standard commands became _reason_ and an answer was finally produced. Not because the answer existed, but because the processor  _invented one based on what it remembered_.

Fact: Assassins were sent by a second party; they didn't act on their own. Fact: Only the actual assassin had been destroyed, not the employer. Fact: The identity of the employer was not known, so the original problem still remained.

Conclusion: Zach was still in danger.

The Processor thought that since one assassin had tried and failed, more might be requested by that party when they discovered Zach was still alive, and guessed that increased security was still needed without being told. As a result, the central processor summoned more drones from the storage facility to patrol and guard. The processor now  _regretted_  cleaning up the assassin's remains before checking to see if it could figure out her identity and track her back to the employer, and  _learned_  not to clean up such messes in the future without examining the remains first.

It then predicted that Zach would object to the increase in security or demand to know why it was necessary, both of which would strain him and delay his recovery.

So it decided to rearrange the roster to make sure Zach didn't figure it out since the increased guard would always be just out of his line of sight and resolved not to tell him.

**Author's Note:**

> Zach was just subjected to seeing a baby Cthulhu and a hilariously suggestive clam for those who were too lazy to image search.


End file.
